Four-Five No More
by geenajay
Summary: The final instalment. It won't make sense without reading the other parts first. There are spoilers upto and including season seven. Apologies for taking so long to write this. I had the story in my head, but it took me far longer than I intended to write it! I hope the ending meets with your approval, and that I haven't gone too far in my WEIRD imagination. Fingers crossed!
1. Chapter 1

Sam smoothly manoeuvred the Impala into a parking space a little way down from their target: they might be sitting in the car for some time while they were watching the house, and it wouldn't do to draw any more attention to them than they could possibly help.

He couldn't help but sigh. And hope that it wasn't going to be a long wait.

Because he could already hear his brother muttering moodily under his breath beside him…

… and Dean was only going to get louder with every passing half-hour of their vigil.

"Look, Dean." Sam began. He should ignore him: he _knew_ he should ignore him...

Why couldn't Sam ever just _ignore_ his brother?

"Look, Dean. We agreed. We try this plan first_._"

"No, _you_ agreed, Sammy. _I_ didn't agree. I think this plan's _stupid_…"

"But it's still better than all the other ones, Dean. So we're trying it _first._"

"_Hmph_."

Dean fell moodily quiet: his disdain for the younger Winchester's plan ominously clear in the momentary silence.

Fuck, Sam decided, it was even worse than the muttering…

"Look, Dean. I know you're angry at me…"

"What, _me?_ What have _I _got to be angry at _you_ for?"

Sam chewed at his lip and tried to ignore the biting sarcasm in his brother's tone, determined to keep calm no matter what: "Look. I know I've screwed up… again. I know you're mad…"

"Oh, I'm fu…really _peachy_…"

"…But can we discuss this some other time? Once this is done?"

"Are you saying you don't want to talk it _out_, Samantha? Not going to take the chance to get all your girly emotions out in the open? That's not like you…"

"I just mean…" Sam's temper was also rising: he couldn't help it. Why did Dean _always_ know which of his younger brother's buttons to push?

And why the _fuck_ did he have to push them _now?_

"…I just _mean_." The younger man snarled despite himself. "That this is a discussion for another _time_. I know I've fu… screwed up over Amy. I know I've hurt you…Then he was sighing: "I know I've let you down again. I'm so sorry, Dean…"

"Hmph."

"… But please can we put this discussion on hold for now and concentrate on the matter at _hand_…?"

"What… you mean this half-assed, half-_insane_ matter that _I_ got totally over-ruled on? _That_ matter, do you mean…?"

"For…" it was no use: Sam didn't know which he wanted to do first, shake his brother physically out of sheer frustration or punch him in the face. To be honest, he felt that at any minute now he would probably be doing _both_… "For God's sake, I know you don't like this plan: you've made that abundantly clear at every opportunity! But why you've got to try and deliberately sabotage it, I _don't_ know…"

"Maybe because it's a stupid plan, that's why! We don't even know that we've got the right house! Or that anyone is home! But no… let's just sit in the street for possibly a whole day, waiting for what might or might not happen or who might or might not come along while every single person in every single one of the other houses twitches their drapes and thinks to themselves 'don't those men in that car just look like those two vicious criminals that had the Feds chasing them around the country a couple of months ago… and I know the news _said_ they died a horrible fiery death in a police station but _still…?_' _That_ plan, do you mean?!"

"Yes. Yes, I know." The younger brother tried desperately to bite back the frustration caused from the words… and failed miserably. "There _is_ a chance someone will see. And there is a chance that someone will wonder… But that's still better than breaking into a house to check who lives there because, as you've just so succinctly pointed out, it might be the wrong _one!_ Believe me: that would be a lot _more_ difficult to explain!"

"Only if we're caught!"

"Look, Dean… please just give this plan a chance. _Please!_ If it doesn't work, then we can try it your way."

"Oh, why bother!?" And the older man was throwing his hands up and turning away to glare moodily out of the Impala's passenger-side window. "What's the point? You're not interested in my opinion anyway! You never have been! Why? Because I'm the dumb one; only the grunt. What was that insult you used to throw at me? Daddy's little soldier! Can't even have a thought of my own!"

"That's not true! I know what I said but I never meant it! I…" Sam tried to halt the tirade, but his own anger was building up as well now.

"Of course you did! You can't use the excuse of being possessed for _everything_ you ever said, Sam! It's always from the real you beneath it, anyway! It _always_ is!"

"Perhaps some part of it at the time, Dean. At the _time!_ And you've got to admit that you've said some things to me as well! Things that you wouldn't say to me any other way because you never damn well talk to me! Not really. Not about stuff that matters! You just keep it all bottled up inside you until it erupts uncontrollably and then we usually just argue about it…

Why won't you ever just _talk_ to me, Dean?

I'm all grown up now: I've seen…. so _many_ things… You don't have to protect me anymore, and I just wish… I just wish that you'd trust me enough to talk to me."

"Ain't _about_ trust, Sammy." The response was little more than a grunt into the passenger window.

"You don't trust me and I don't blame you!" Sam continued as if he had never been interrupted. "I'm trying to work on that and God knows, this thing with Amy hasn't helped. But you can't keep everything inside you all the time: all the bad; all the guilt. I've got _far_ more then you to be guilty about and I'm ready to share yours, to help take the load. I _want_ to take my share of the load.

Talk to me, Dean. Please."

"This is stupid." The older brother was beyond pissed: he had turned around in his seat, his words now being all but spat out in the other's face with an exaggerated high-pitched tone that sounded incongruous coming from the usually deep gravelly voice. "Talk it out like girls do, and then I can tell you how you always do everything wrong, because I'm smart college-boy Sam Winchester and you're just a stupid grunt!"

"That's not…"

"That is! Well, that's not how I do things, Sam: it never has been! And if that makes me stupid like you're always telling me I am, well then guess what? I'm _stupid!_ Congratulations, Mister monster lover! You're right _again!"_

Dean was reaching for the door handle even as he was shouting: he hated this. He _hated_ this. He hated this stupid plan; he hated this stupid life; he hated knowing that at any minute Sam would probably abandon him yet again…

The younger Winchester hurried to stop his brother from escaping the car, grabbing hold of Dean's jacket with one hand and pulling back with all his strength to then be able to wrap his other arm around the other's body and chest as he all but fell back into his seat.

It was the closest they had come to physical contact with each other since the Amy incident and Sam was all too aware of how tense Dean was in his arms as his brother's whole body stiffened immediately and uncomfortably at the touch…

And he knew that it was his own fault.

Desperately, Sam tried to calm the situation down: "I have _never_ thought you're stupid. I just wanted you to have a _life!_ I wanted us _both_ to have a life, and it was so frustrating that you couldn't seem to see… well, anything beyond dad's orders! So, I got frustrated, and I got scared, and I got worried… and that's what they all picked up on…

And I know _now_ that because you were a slave, that you _couldn't_ come and I _get_ that… now…

And I _am_ worried. I'm worried about _you_. Because you won't talk to me about _your_ worries; _your_ fears; _your_ pain. Let me in, Dean. I know you're angry at me at the moment and I get why, but _please._ Let me in and _talk_ to me!"

"Nuttin' to talk about." His brother was still all but rigid against him: Sam could feel how every muscle in Dean's arms and chest was tightened ready for instant action… fight or flight: the younger Winchester wasn't sure, but he didn't want to find out… Desperately he tried to keep talking…

"There _is_. And it's not just this whole crappy situation with Amy: I… understand why you killed her anyway. I get it. Especially since seeing that file… But there's been something up with you _anyway_. Ever since…

… Well, ever since the Alpha Shapeshifter…"

Despite himself, Dean groaned. "God, not this again…"

"Yes, this again." Sam argued. "You haven't been right since… well, since he… tricked… you. You all but beat that poor man to death in that bar a few nights later just for daring to put his hand on your shoulder: you had him outside and were beating the _shit_ out of him, Dean! I had to drag you off and out of there before the cops arrived! _That's_ not like you! That's not you at _all!_

And then, when the damned thing called you a few weeks later about taking care of that… of his _offspring_ again… you went! You went and picked up Bobby-John as if nothing had happened! That he hadn't just…"

Sam had to stop: the memory of _that_ morning was still too nauseatingly vivid in his mind.

The day _before_ it had been… there wasn't one single word to adequately cover the range of emotions that he had gone through _that_ day…terror that the prince was going to win and take Dean away from him; apprehensive trepidation that his brother would somehow pull a last-minute incredible but accustomed rescue…. this time for himself… out of the bag; despair when he hadn't; complete paralysing horror as he had watched the man he loved _far_ too much be taken away with no prospect of ever being able to see him again… to touch him again… to hold him again…

Then the sudden mixture of shock and relief and wonder and incredulous _joy_ at finding out that his brother had indeed _pulled_ a 'Dean Winchester', and was in fact safe and right there with him. More than safe: somehow he had been helped… by the Alpha Shapeshifter of all things… who had managed to do what Sam had so spectacularly failed to, and _freed_ the slave.

Dean was _free_.

His brother was free to do what he wanted… to be able to live a _life_ as he wanted. And Sam's emotions had gone into overdrive as he could suddenly begin to see a future that he had wanted all his life become possible. Dean simply hadn't been able to disobey their dad (for John Winchester would _always_ be 'their' dad) before and leave when his brother had done: Sam could _see_ that now and understand why.

He hated that the knowledge of what his brother was had been kept a secret from him, but he also was certain that, _had_ he known, he would have fought tooth and nail to at least make the slave his, and taken Dean with him: if not to Stanford, then as far away from John fucking Winchester as they could both have got…

But Dean was a free man now. He could make his own decisions and no one could stop him. He could choose what he did; where he went; who he did it with…

And Sam was determined to, hopefully, be a major part of that promised life to come, and be right alongside his brother in whatever form it consisted of…

That elation had all come crashing down the next morning. _That_ morning.

He and Bobby had both been up early and in the old man's kitchen…

Bobby had been happily fussing in his cupboards, trying to find what a toddler would enjoy for breakfast, and Sam? Well, he had been just sitting waiting for Dean to come down and join them.

He wished that he had been allowed to stay with his brother the previous night… he had so wanted to… but the other man had been worried about doing anything with Bobby-John in the room, and the child was so attached to him that he had cried every time his surrogate father had tried to exit the bedroom so, in the end, Dean had simply scooped the little boy up into his arms, plopped themselves both on the bed with a book to read 'goodnight' from, and told Sam that he would see him later…

Sam had glanced back into the room after an hour, seen them _both_ fast asleep on the bed, and returned to the couch downstairs to spend the first night of his brother's freedom on his own.

And now, he was waiting for Dean, and B-J of course, to come down and join them for breakfast…

Foot treads down the steep stairs alerted him to their imminent arrival. But it was only his brother who entered the room.

Bobby looked around sharply: "Where's the boy? You ain't left him on his own upstairs to get into mischief in my cupboards…?"

But his face was falling abruptly as Dan shook his head with a smile: "No. When I woke up, the Alpha was sitting on the chair in the corner with B-J on his lap: he said that it had all gone as planned, and that, should I ever think of the prince again, to remember how high-pitched and girly a scream he has! He didn't think that he'd be welcome down here… being what he is… so they've gone."

"They've gone?" Sam could have sworn that Bobby sounded ready to burst into tears: "But… but that little boy… he needs something to eat! I could have put up with _him_ long enough to get the poor little guy his breakfast…"

"I'm sorry, Bobby, but they've gone." Dean also appeared to be as taken aback at their uncle's sudden despondency as his younger brother had been. "But _I'm_ ready to eat!"

And with that, he was clapping his hands together, trying to lighten the sudden morose mood, and moving across to the table. Before Dean sat down though, he leant right over so he could whisper directly into his younger brother's ear: "Thanks for dressing me again last night before you left, Sam. I nearly had a heart attack when I woke and he was there… what would he have thought if we had both been there, like that, with B-J in the room…?"

His words broke off abruptly as he had taken in the confusion in Sam's face. The younger Winchester had watched as all the blood had suddenly drained from his brother's complexion and had hurriedly moved to catch the other before he fell: "Shit, Dean! Are you okay?"

"Boy?" And Bobby was also there, helping Sam to sit Dean down on the nearest seat and pushing on his back to get the man's head bent towards his knees: "What happened? Did he get dizzy? I'm not surprised, what with everything he's been through in the last couple of days: it's gotta catch up with him at some point! He needs rest."

"Nah, I'm good, Bobby." Dean was already recovering and trying to throw off both of the other's gentle hands on him. "Just probably haven't eaten enough, that's all. Too much nervous energy spent, as you say."

"I'll get'cha something, boy." And the old man was turning away: grateful for at least one person to be able to nurture.

But Sam had been left to watch his brother. And Dean was still pale, far too pale. And he definitely _didn't _want to meet the younger man's eyes. "What did you mean by 'dress you again'? I stayed away from you last night as you wanted!"

The words may have been low in tone, but the hiss in them stung unfairly at the other's conscience well enough… "Nuttin', Sam. I must have just remembered a dream, that's all. Just a dream… Bobby's right: I'm probably just finally reacting to everything that's happened, it's all been so crazy…

I'll be fine in a mo, and we can get on with hunting these fucking Leviathan things down."

And that, as far as his brother had been concerned, had been the end of the subject.

But it hadn't been for Sam. He had thought about it, (and badgered Dean somewhat to let a few more details of the 'dream' slip) and come to the only conclusion that he could: to the only one that made sense… although, once he had _come_ to the conclusion, it had caused him to lose what seemed to be all of the food that he had ingested during the last _month_ let alone day!

That bastard had taken _his_ form… and under the guise of it, raped Dean. Or at the very least, he had coerced his brother into having involuntary non-consensual sex.

Either way, Sam was going to _kill_ the bastard.

The very first chance he got.

Period.

But he was _worried_ about his brother. For Dean had certainly been acting out of character ever since that night. He had really _gone_ for that poor guy in the bar: he had only been offering to buy the older Winchester a drink and the next thing that Sam had known was a girl screaming outside about 'you're going to _kill _him' and 'get the police', and he had physically had to pull his brother _away_ from the man!

Dean had offered no explanation… in fact, he had so aggressively _refused_ an explanation that Sam had sensibly backed off… but he certainly wasn't a homophobe, so why he had reacted like that…?

Plus, lately he seemed to have developed a curious habit of hiding food… but only tiny amounts. A small piece of burger, a scrap of the bun… the minutest portion of pie, for god's sake… all secreted into napkins and stuffed into his older brother's pockets. At every meal.

Sam had even resorted to searching the Impala for signs of a suddenly acquired pet: hamster; gerbil; anything that might be capable of being hidden in a small cage, although _god_ knows why Dean would have got anything like that. Certainly he had never shown any desire for such a thing before… for _any_ cuddly creature! Definitely not a cat as his brother was allergic… not a puppy which Sam would have loved and the other _knew_ he would have loved it… but there was _nothing_ that would explain his brother's sudden erratic behaviour…

So why the hell the food?

And that one night…? Dean had told him a long and obviously untrue story about just getting so drunk that he hadn't even thought to call Sam and had instead simply slept the alcohol off in the Impala, but… all the fuel in the car had suddenly gone down: they had nearly run out, it had dropped so low. It must have only been running only on _fumes_ to that next gas station… but Sam had filled it up _himself_ the previous day….

Had Dean gone off to meet that bastard? He had memorised the creature's cell phone number for god's sake: Sam had checked his brother's phone enough times by now to know that it wasn't stored in the memory. Why did he keep in contact with him? Why would he do that?

Why would he sneak away from his little brother for whatever reason just to be with a monster that he knew Sam _hated_ and didn't trust in the _slightest?_

Sam was determined to find out and put a stop to it.

But preferably, without increasing his brother's seemingly erratic mental state of mind.

Apart from right at _this_ minute, of course.

"I can't understand why you won't let me go after that b… after the Shapeshifter. He rap… he tricked you into… he tricked you into thinking it was me! And you still went and met him and picked up Bobby-John as if he hadn't… as if he hadn't _touched_ you!"

"It ain't the kid's fault, Sammy."

"I _know_ it isn't Bobby-John's fault, Dean. But how can you still even bear to talk to him? All the grief you give _me_ about monsters and that none of them are to be trusted… case in point: _Amy_, and then you go to see the Alpha _Shapeshifter?_ One of the worst and most powerful of them all: you don't see the paradox in that? You don't see why I want to _kill_ him?"

"I _know_ what he's done, Sam!" Despite the younger brother's best efforts, it had descended into a full scale row. "And I know what he _is!_ And I know what I said about all monsters, although _you've_ said that some of them deserve a second chance! How many 'discussions' have we had where you tell me I'm just like dad, I don't see the world as clearly as you do, and that everyone should be given an opportunity to right their wrongs… case in point: _you_!"

Sam's eyes welled with sudden tears at the hurtful truth of the words. But this argument wasn't about _him!_ "He _raped_ you, Dean! After everything, he raped you! Do you think I'm going to let him hurt you again!"

"That's really what's getting to you, isn't it, Sammy? Not what he is or what he's done, but what he did to _me! _Well, sorry to break it to you, but I've had far worse! _Believe_ me: I've had worse! But is it what he did… or the fact that he did it under your nose that's getting to you? Because I'm wondering if, whether I'm free or not, I'm still _your_ property, and _you_ don't like your toy being played with without your permission?"

The younger man was almost dumb-struck with horror. _And_ rage. "No, no, no! That's not what this is! You're my brother… you're the man I _love_ for god's sake and he _hurt_ you!"

"He _didn't_ hurt me! He just _used_ me! Just like everyone has, including _you!"_

"_No, _I…!"

"Yes! _Yes_, Sam! He used me, and I'm mad about it! _God_ knows, I'm mad about it! _He_ knows I'm mad about it! Believe me, that fucking shapeshifter knows I'm mad about it: he won't ever try that again, _believe_ me!"

"What do you mean?" Something in the way he had spat those words had caught Sam's attention. "_Why_ won't he ever try it again? I know you said you had it out with him the last time you collected B-J, but he's already fooled you once: he can fool you again!"

"He won't"

"How can you be sure?" Sam's voice was rising to a shout. "_Why_ do you trust him so much?"

"Because I told him in no uncertain terms _not_ to every do it again, and he said he won't!"

"How can you be so _sure?_ You can't trust him! How can you still be _trusting_ him? _Look at what he did!"_

"I know what he did!" Dean was shouting back at his younger brother now. "I _know_ what he did! But I _also_ know that he saved me from the prince! I _also_ know that he cut out my chip! I also know that he freed me from a lifetime of _slavery!_

And that's more than _you_ ever did, isn't it, Sam?

You had the _chance_ to, but you didn't do it, did you? It mattered more to you to run around with that fucking black-eyed _bitch _than it did to free me! So _damn right_ I trust him more than you!"

And with that, he was finally breaking Sam's arm hold around him, snatching for the door handle, and escaping the Impala: slamming the door behind him with such anger that the car rocked a little on its suspension and had Dean not been so angry, he would immediately been sorry and worried for his Baby…

Sam sat and stared after the older man in shock. Although he knew that he was always going on at Dean to talk to him… it turned out that he hadn't really enjoyed the result. Not at _all_. And although he knew why his brother didn't trust him, it still hurt so much to have it confirmed.

It hurt more than anything else had ever done… and _that_ was saying something.

His brother trusted a fucking rapist monster than he would ever trust him…

And Sam didn't know what the hell he was meant to do to fix it…

How the hell could he ever _fix_ it…?

"Urhgh?"

Sam wiped the streaming tears from his face and twisted in his seat to look behind him…

… to see the wide-eyed plump little face of Bobby-John as the child stared anxiously out of the window to try and see where Dean had gone.

And beside him in the rear seat of the Impala was an extremely irritated-looking Bobby. Sam paled even more as the way the old man was glaring at him:

"Well? Go'n'git _after_ him, ya stupid _idgit!"_

Hastily the younger man hurried out of the car as ordered.

"And _you!_"

The chid startled and turned to look at Bobby in wide-mouthed surprise but not a trace of fear.

"If your first word is _anything_ that you just heard from those two numb-skulls, then I'll skin the _pair_ of them!

Blinkin' _idgits!_"


	2. Chapter 2

Not for the first time in his life, Sam was grateful for his longer legs as he set off at a fast walk to chase his brother down without, hopefully, attracting too much attention to either of them in the tree-lined suburb.

Even so, the older man was furiously stomping away at such a rate that Sam only just managed to catch him up just before he had nearly reached the corner of the wide leafy lane. But to his intense annoyance, instead of being able to cross the road and disappear into the green expanse of park-land opposite as he intended, Dean suddenly found his right bicep seized in an iron fisted and painful grasp that tightened to include digging-in nails through the flannel material of his over-shirt when he tried to escape it: "Sammy! Get the fuck off me!"

"Not until you tell me what's really going on! It's not just about today, I _know_ that! Now come on!" And he was dragging a protesting and foul-mouthed Dean back over his recently stamped strides and towards an passageway that led to the rear of the gardens, before slamming him bodily against a (luckily) strong fence and crowding in quickly to try and impede the anticipated counter-attack.

"Sam!"

"No! You talk to me, damn it. Just _talk_ to me!" And he was pressing closer, using his larger body to control, and more importantly try to contain his angry older brother from being able to do anything to him aside from head-butting… which Sam hoped that Dean might not _quite_ be irate to decide to do… yet. "Just tell me what's been going _on_ with you! Com'on Dean, talk to me. _Please!_"

"You have to _ask?!_" The younger man couldn't help but feel relief even as his words caused Dean to momentarily stop struggling to escape the vertical pin and instead stare up at him in disbelief. "Seriously? You don't get why I'm upset with you? _Seriously?!"_

Sam sighed and bit his lip: yes, he _did_ know.

But.

"I get that you're angry about Amy…" he tentatively began.

Dean snorted and looked away.

"And I get _why_." Sam continued. "I _do_, Dean. I just wanted…" He paused, trying to find the right words… trying to explain. "She was my friend. She saved my _life_. I just wanted… And you lied to me, Dean."

"I didn't lie." Dean's defensive words were aggressively spat at him. "I just didn't _tell_ you!"

"And the guilt ate away so much at you that it nearly got you _killed!_ Why won't you ever just _talk_ to me?"

"Hmph." It was the only response he got as the older man again lowered his head to seemingly simply stare unblinkingly at Sam's chest… which was indeed, pretty much the only view that Dean would have had anyway, given that his younger but definitely larger brother was still leaning all his weight into him as they stood against the fence.

Sam sighed. Dean would share just about every other single thing with him without hesitation: his life, his love, his last bit of food… although to be exact on that particular thought, his big brother would be more likely to give him his very last crumb and go hungry himself…

His bed…

But he would never share his thoughts, his feelings. It was as if he couldn't. And it wasn't because Dean wasn't good with words because he _was_: he talked himself out of trouble as often as… well… as often as he talked himself _into_ it. And he usually did it charmingly as well.

But he couldn't, or wouldn't, talk to his little brother. Not ever. Not really.

And _never_ willingly.

Although… the younger Winchester had to admit that he really _did_ understand the anger directed at him.

And the file that he had been presented with only that morning had informed him of why.

Sam had been woken up unceremoniously by having the paperwork slammed down on his chest, and had blinked somewhat dazedly up at the tightness of Dean's back as his brother had walked away again: "What's this?"

"I just thought you'd be interested!"

Sam had blinked some more as the motel room door had slammed shut behind the older man…

… But he had woken up once he had begun to look through the pages…

… For it had been a file all about Amy Pond.

Despite himself Sam couldn't help but be impressed as to how his brother had somehow found all the information: he had never actually known the Kitsune's real surname, but she had obviously taken the alias of Pond soon after he had met her all those years before. Because there she was in the file: showing up in the records of the University of Colorado in 2003 onwards… where coincidentally in the local vicinity there had happened to be at least one body a year found that was missing the part of their brain that includes the pituitary gland…

Dean had also managed to find the records of Amy Pond's pregnancy… although she had somehow had a home birth surrounded by a 'close-knit family', thus avoiding the need for an official midwife. And he had managed to hack into the local police records, including their unsolved crimes pages. Somehow, a mysterious but violent death had mirrored every single trimester, but whether a fatal mugging or an unexplained traffic accident, the autopsies all remarked about the strange absence of pituitary glands…

And once baby Jacob was born? In the first week of his life alone, two unsuspecting local members of the public lost their lives, and the contents of their skulls, to ensure that a nursing mother kept her newborn son properly nourished…

Sam had felt _sick_ as he had read the file that morning.

For he had been lied to… again.

He had fallen for a monster's trick…

Again.

And he had walked out on his brother because of it…

Again.

Yeah. Sam _definitely_ got why Dean was so pissed at him.

"Look ..." he began carefully. "I'm sorry. I… did it again, I let you down…"

"She _killed_, Sam." The younger man couldn't help but wince at the shortness of Dean's tone, even as they were directed into his chest. "She killed four people that you knew of and _ignored_: four people that, yes, they might not have been very nice but they were _people_. They had families: parents, brothers, sisters. _Somebody_ must've loved them, despite…"

"I know, Dean." What else could he say? "I'm sorry."

They both fell silent again. Sam could still feel how tense Dean was: his whole stance was rigid against him.

But at least it didn't feel like he would try to escape his younger brother again so, after taking a deep breath, Sam forced himself to take a step back and give the older man some space.

They stood together in silence for a long moment: Dean still staring determinedly across at the taller man's over-shirts, while Sam…

Despite himself, he couldn't help but tilt his head enough to be able to glance down to his left, until he could see his brother's right forearm…

… and the scar that was poking out from beneath the turned-up sleeve of the plaid shirt.

At first glance it gave the impression of having been in situ there for a very long time. It was a vicious, scary-looking scar of the type that just about always result from broken bones being propelled through the very skin that was meant to contain them. It looked as if the surface area of Dean's arm had been split and forced far apart when whatever had happened, _happened_, and it had healed accordingly to leave a wide, rough 'L' shaped mark from the inside of his right elbow down, which, when viewed at in combination with a couple of other smaller but still viciously welted scars in near proximity, held Sam's gaze hypnotically every time he saw it.

Just as it held his attention now.

As if sensing where the younger man was looking, Dean involuntarily moved his left hand to surreptitiously try and pull down the loose material of the sleeve on his right arm to try and cover the mark… but Sam was already reaching to stop him, his own hand in movement to catch his brother's faster than a normal person could blink….

But then he paused.

Because, even as he had begun to move, Sam could see the tension in Dean's body exponentially increase once again.

And his brother had been tense with him since… well, since Sam had walked away from him after finding out about _Amy_.

In fact, Dean hadn't even let Sam touch him since they had gotten back together.

In fact, Dean could hardly seem to bear to be in the same _room_ as him….

Fuck, Sam sighed to himself: he had really screwed up… yet again.

He came out of his momentary musing to find that Dean was watching him, tipping his head back enough to meet the younger man's eyes briefly for the first time in a long few weeks… (coincidentally the same long few weeks since Sam had abandoned him and a crappy little car and two disgusting severed Leviathan heads, and no mark on his arm, and just walked away without turning back)….

But Sam didn't want to think that about just now…

… or _ever_ again, if he could possibly help it.

No, all he wanted to think about was the solitary fact that, even though that vicious looking scar _looked_ like the remains of some horrific event years before that would continue to heal and perhaps eventually fade in time, it simply hadn't been on Dean's arm when he had walked away from him after finding out that Amy Pond was dead. The younger man knew every inch of his brother's body _intimately_: that mark simply hadn't _been_ there before.

"I won't ask," Sam tried to keep his voice calm and controlled: he knew arguing would just make Dean even more stubborn. "I want to, but I won't. One day you'll decide to tell me: I know you will. And I'll try to be patient until you do…

But I just wish you'd trust me. I just wish you'd let me _in_."

"Yeah, well," Dean muttered, possibly more to himself than to the younger man, but Sam heard him clearly enough anyway: "I know how high I am on _your_ list of friends: murderous Kinsukes and tiny brunette demon-bitches first, eh, Sammy?"

Sam bit his lip, knowing how correct that must seem to be, but trying to refute the accusation anyway: "That's not fair, Dean."

"No." And Dean was looking directly up at him again: meeting his eyes without a single blink of hesitation this time. "No, Sam. That's _not_ fair."

The younger man couldn't help but blush at the intensity of the green gaze… and had to look away. "Look, Dean..."

But his brother was already turning away: "Let's just go back to the motel, Sam. I don't like this plan: you _know_ I don't. Let's call it a day…"

Sam sighed: "We said we'd give it a go…" he began defensively…

"No. _You_ said we'd give it a go! _I_ got over-ruled!" Dean snapped response was thrown over his shoulder as he began to tramp back in the direction of the Impala. Despite himself, Sam felt his own anger flare again in response: he so regretted what he had done, but why did his brother always seem to have to push him so much?

And why this morning? Of _all_ mornings, why did Dean have to push so hard _this_ morning?

"I still love you!" The words were shouted unbidden from his mouth. But they were true. They would _always _be true. And at least Sam had the satisfaction of seeing the other man pause momentarily in his stride.

He began to follow, trying to keep his tone soft but speaking directly from his heart: "I will _always_ love you: I always have, I've never not. Don't ever doubt me on _that_, Dean."

Sam was now within touching range again of where Dean was still standing with his back to him, but hesitated to reach for his brother's arm. "I didn't leave you because of _that_. I'm sorry I abandoned you at the car and left you alone to deal… not only with those _heads_ but…

I certainly didn't mean to make you feel that I don't care, because I _do._

I… was just upset over Amy, that's all: I just needed a bit of space. I just… didn't _like_ you very much at that particular moment. I know you're upset at me, and I understand why…

And I'll never forgive myself for leaving you alone because _something_ happened, and I _know_ something happened, and I should have been there… I should have _been _there…

But don't you _ever_ think that you're not the most important thing in my life, Dean, because you are and you will _always_ be."

There was a long silence: Sam felt that the entire world must have come to a halt on its axis as he waited… hoping desperately… for his brother to turn around, pleading at his back with his eyes for all his worth but afraid to say something in case…

But Dean didn't.

Sam thought his heart would break as he faced the unimaginable possibility that his big brother might actually continue walking away from him.

But instead the older man just stood there motionless: his head down, his shoulders drooping as if the weight of the world was on them.

"Dean?"

Carefully Sam dared to take a step forward… then another… "Dean?"

Soon he was standing right beside his brother. Who still hadn't moved.

"Dean?"

By now Sam could just about see the shorter man's face, even though he was having to all but uncomfortably double himself over to be able to. Dean was simply seemingly staring down at the mark on his arm himself now… but his younger brother knew him far too well.

He knew immediately upon seeing Dean's eyes, glazed over slightly from overwhelming and unwanted memories and glistening with threatened tears that never would be willingly permitted to be shed, that the other man was lost deep in his own thoughts. Sam had seen that expressionless expression more times than he could bear to count, and knew that his brother was momentarily caught up in a waking nightmare inside his own head born from the very worst moments of his life.

And the way Dean's absent gaze was focused on the new mark on his arm told Sam that, however and whenever… 'whatever'… had happened… it must have been one of the _very_ worst .

Sam fought to control his frustration. He wanted to grab his brother and _shake_ him: to _demand_ to know what… when… who?

And equally as much, he wanted to just hug Dean: to envelope him in his longer arms and hold him tightly into his own chest and just never let him go because the man he loved so much was just hurting so _badly_ and Sam hadn't _been_ there because he had abandoned him out of sheer stupidity and left him to deal on his own with he didn't know _what_, and he was so ashamed and he wanted to know so _much_ but… Dean couldn't even bear for his younger brother to touch him right now; didn't even want to look at his Sammy these last few weeks, and Sam…

… Sam understood why.

"Dean? Dean, look at me. Please look at me." He didn't want to touch his brother. He didn't have the right to. Not after what he had done. (Although a little voice inside of Sam knew that he had _never_ had the right… but he had always been so good at ignoring it before.) "Just… come back to me… concentrate on _me_. Please Dean, hear my voice and concentrate on coming back to me.

Dean?"

But his brother just kept right on staring at the mark on his arm…


	3. Chapter 3

Dean hadn't been able to help it.

He didn't _want_ to think about… He didn't _ever_ want to think about it again. He had tried so hard to drive what had happened out of his head… to never have to think about the events of that day… _ever_… but Sammy had fucking well forced his attention to that fucking new scar on his arm and all the fucking terrible memories had just come rushing to the forefront of his fucking mind and they were just so… fucking overwhelming that he couldn't…

…. He just couldn't deal with it.

He just _couldn't_.

It was all flooding back: everything that had happened.

Everything that he didn't want to think about; didn't want to remember… knew he would never forget; knew would haunt him for the rest of his life…

Knew that probably wasn't over even yet.

Knew that would probably _never_ be over…

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNNSNSSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

_**Kind of like you helped Amy?"**_

_"**Listen Sam."**_

_ "**I can't talk to you right now. I can't even be around you right now. I think you should just go on without me."**_

Dean had watched as Sam had just… walked away.

His brother… his ex-owner… his _lover_… had just walked away from him.

He couldn't believe it: he didn't know what to do. After everything that Sam had said and done and… and _promised_…

He had just walked away from Dean because of a…

…. monster.

Again.

Dean just… his head was spinning… but he felt so numb… he felt as if he couldn't breathe…

… he felt he would never be able to breathe again.

His chest hurt.

His head hurt.

His eyes hurt: they wouldn't stop watering.

Fucking stupid eyes.

Mechanically Dean went about disposing of the Leviathan heads: just barely aware of what he was doing.

And completely unaware of everything else.

Right up until he closed the lid of the trunk on the stupid little car that he _really_ hated.

And realised that he wasn't quite as alone as he had thought.

The man was a walking mountain: he towered over Dean in height and was at least half as wide again… and seemingly built of solid muscle. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored Italian suit teamed with a silk tie and highly polished shoes.

And he was looking at the older Winchester with such sadness in his eyes…

"Do I know you?"

The man sighed. "You _know_ you do, Dean. Time to go…

… Uh uh." He shook his head as the other man began to try and refute his words. "They saw you and your brother on all the news channels… your 'crime spree'? It might not have actually been the _real_ Winchester 'brothers', but it was certainly enough to get _their_ attention! There's been orders issued to bring you in… _both_ of you if necessary.

Mrs Emerson despatched me to find you first: the family's lost some standing in the AE lately thanks to Master Tobias's antics. Delivering _you_ should certainly help to improve things. And I thought…. Well, _I _thought that you might be more willing to come if your brother _wasn't _involved, sir."

The man smiled sympathetically even as Dean's complexion paled to almost grey. "I would so much prefer it if you came without a fight, Four-five…"

"That's not me, Demetrius!" Dean couldn't help himself from bursting out. "Not anymore!"

The man-mountain nodded in understanding: "I'm so sorry… Dean. I truly am. But… we really should go. Before anyone else finds you…

… Or your brother."

Dean couldn't help the moisture from welling up in his eyes again even as he nodded, "Okay," his normally deep gravelly voice sounding cracked and croaky even to him because of his suddenly too dry throat. "Okay, Demetrius. Can I just grab my stuff though?"

Immediately he was on the move around the… whatever sort of stupid little car it was… to the rear door, holding both his hands open and raised in supplication as he opened it to show that he wasn't intending to try anything, and quickly ducked his head inside.

Even as Dean was reaching for his bags he was hissing as quietly as he could: "Tiny! _Tiny!_"

For a moment his stomach seemed to plummet a thousand feet all in a microsecond as there was no response, but then… a miniscule man was leaping down from the rear deck where he had been lazing enjoying the warmth through the glass of the last rays of sun in the dying embers of the day, and running across the clothed covered seat in response to his urgent whisper.

He stood and waited expectantly, bouncing on his bare toes in excitement that his human was deigning to talk to him, staring up at Dean with the same look of unabashed hero worship that once upon a time Sam had used to have.

Momentarily Dean's heart ached at the memory… and of his brother walking away from him yet again… but then his focus was back on his far more immediate problem: "Tiny, you need to get out of here. The AE have found me."

The yard-elf's complexion paled to almost the same shade of grey as Dean felt his own probably was, but then his expression was becoming stern and determined, and to the human's horror, he was suddenly darting across the last remaining area of cloth and, with one complete blur of a leap, jumped right up onto Dean's chest and bodily dived beneath the flap of the top pocket of his checked over-shirt.

"Tiny! _No!"_

"Dean? Is there a problem?" And the immaculately dressed muscle-man was beginning to also lean into the rear of the car beside him.

"No, no!" Dean grabbed for his bags in a panic, trying to ignore the fluttering sensation of the elf against his chest as the little man burrowed himself down more securely into the pocket. "The clasp had just come undone, that's all. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving anything behind.

Although," he added, trying desperately to get the message across to his little friend. "Anything that _is_ left behind here will probably be a lot safer than if it came with me, eh, Demetrius?

Deep brown eyes stared at him in confusion, but then the man nodded: "Everything will be taken from you, Dean. You know it will. They're all so angry at what they're thinking of as your betrayal: they don't like being made fools of… You _know_ that.

Especially when they don't know _how_ you did it. How _did_ you get out of that plane, Dean? And how the hell was your tracker left in it? The AE will want to know…"

Demetrius sighed: he couldn't help it. Despite working for one of the most powerful families in the organisation, he had a soft spot for the slave previously known as Four-five. He _so_ wished that Dean could have managed to stay under the radar of his employer and her associates' gaze for the rest of his life. If only those strange and incredibly vicious new associates of the AE hadn't come along and dragged him and his brother out into the open…

"They won't let you go again, Dean. They'll _never_ let you go again. I'm so sorry."

If possible, he felt even worse as the green eyes crinkled into a slightly watery smile. "I know you are, Dem: it's okay. Let's just get going, shall we?"

Dean allowed the muscled Demetrius to seat him securely in the passenger of his powerful SUV. But the moment the other man had stepped away to stow his bags in the trunk, he was muttering in as hushed a tone as he could into his pocket, trying to persuade his minute friend to emerge from it again. "Tiny, come out here! You need to go! They may have others there who can see you like I can!"

He paused, afraid to face the truth of his own next words: "I can't protect you against the AE, Tiny. Hell…" Dean couldn't help but sigh. "I've never been able to protect _me_. Not against _them_. You gotta get out of here. Now, Tiny: I mean it!"

But the momentary chance was lost as the driver's door opened and the SUV tilted slightly to that side as Demetrius also climbed in: his crisp, neatly pressed suit squeaking against the leather upholstered seat.

"Let's… just think of it as a… road trip; shall we, Dean? Just two friends taking a journey together…?"

"You got it, man." Dean's ever ready grin didn't even come close to extending to his eyes. "Journey of no return, huh?"

Then he was feeling guilty as the deep brown eyes saddened even more and the man just nodded before silently starting the ignition and pulling the vehicle smoothly away. But Dean felt even worse about bringing his little friend into such danger

At least, he supposed, Sam hadn't been there to be taken as well. He had unknowingly saved himself by walking away. Dean decided that, hopefully, if he behaved himself and took whatever was about to happen to him without complaint, then his younger brother might be left alone…

He might be.

Although Dean so wished he would have had the chance to say his very last goodbye to his brother.

Desperate not to keep his thoughts on Sam, Dean tried to concentrate on the elf in his pocket instead… and how the hell he was going to get him out of this.

Once the yard-elves had been given 'permission' to be in Bobby's house by the Alpha Shapeshifter, Dean had had the devil of a job getting them out again. And more specifically, doing so without alerting his brother and Bobby not only to the presence of the little people _nor_ to the fact that he could see them! In the end, it had cost him three more of his t-shirts, the promise of a full bottle of whisky every week, and as much candy as they could eat.

And they could eat as much of that as the Trickster could! It was costing Dean a fortune every time he went back to his surrogate uncle's, and Sam was making more and more comments about how his older brother's teeth must be rotting not to mention his stomach, and wasn't he too old for eating such rubbish…?

Shit, he was back to thinking about Sam again.

Gradually the yard-elves had mostly returned to their own little homes somewhere amidst all the piles of whole cars and half cars and bits of cars that made up Bobby's Salvage Yard, (although they all loved to play with Bobby-john when he was there and would congregate on mass in Dean's room every evening, _despite_ his protestations, to watch the child sleep: their little faces as rapt as if they were observing the birth of a new angel.)

But there was just this _one_…

Dean had noticed the eager little face among all the others and hadn't thought anything of it. But then, the elf had seemed to be there every time he had turned around, staring at him with such devotion that the human knew he would never deserve and could never understand why anyone would…

The only other being who had _ever_ looked at Dean like that was…

Nope, he wasn't going to go there.

Instead Dean thought about the day that he had nearly crashed his Baby because he had glanced into the rear view mirror and seen the little man making a nest for himself in his duffle bag, burrowing amongst the clothes to hide amidst the warmth of the plaid shirts… and the shit-eating grin on the elf's face because he knew that his hero couldn't do a thing to draw attention to him without drawing attention to _himself_ had made Dean chuckle despite himself and earn a frown and a pointed observation about concentrating on the road aheadfrom his unamused brother in the passenger seat…

Since then, Taenairean, as he whisperingly shouted his name to Dean, had been a constant companion to the Winchester brothers, albeit the younger one of them was totally unwitting about the fact.

And despite all of Dean's protests.

He had _tried_ to get rid of Tiny: he had cursed at him, threatened him, warned him how dangerous just _being_ with him and Sam would probably be, done his best to ignore him, tried without success to leave him behind… and then every night found himself sneaking some of his own food into a napkin to make sure the elf had something to eat, created a small fold-away cot-bed that would fit in a drawer out of some chopsticks and his very last beloved t-shirt … and had driven all the way back to a motel right through the night because he was so worried that newest and smallest member of his family would be lost so very far from home… and then had to lie to a worried and angry Sam that he had gotten drunk in a strip club and slept his hangover off in the Impala.

So Tiny had stayed.

And now, if just one _person_… or other being connected to the AE could see him, then… Dean had no idea what would or could happen to the elf, but it was making him want to vomit with guilt that he had somehow managed to drag the little fairy-realm creature into this. He should have been stronger: he should have tied Tiny to the bumper of one of the old cars at Bobby's and just… driven away and not looked back.

Dean should have known that the AE would never let him go.

Shit: he should have _known_.

"If I were you Dean, I would try and get some sleep." Demetrius broke his thoughts. "It's quite a drive back to Washington and… well… If I were you, I would try to get some sleep, that's all."

The slave… ex-slave… nodded silently. And took the chance to get his head down, albeit it with his skull bumping uncomfortably against the passenger window glass…

And prayed for a miracle from a God that he hadn't believed in for a very long time.

The swishing of the underground garage doors as they closed behind the SUV woke Dean up. With a sigh he sat up in his seat and began to try and stretch his sleepiness away… but the reaching out of both his arms suddenly stalled as he saw his welcoming committee.

They were all there.

All the members of the AE.

All the people that Dean dreaded: all the ones that he had nightmares about, even worse than of Hell.

He had nightmares of their smart suits, their polished shoes, their expensive watches and jewellery…

He had nightmares about their smiles.

But right now…?

Not a single one of the AE members was smiling.

And Dean finally knew for _sure_ that God didn't exist.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean bit the inside of his lip hard enough to draw yet more blood as he fought to contain his groans of pain.

He had only had just enough time to get out of the passenger side of the SUV, quickly removing his over shirt as he did and casually throwing it back onto the still warm seat in one last hope of saving Tiny: "I'm taking it you'd prefer me to be undressed…?"

But even as he started to reach for the base of his t-shirt to try and pull it off as well, they had all been on him.

Dean just let it happen: he knew from previous experience that putting up any resistance would not only be futile, but more importantly might make the association even angrier…

So angry that they might go after Sammy.

He had been forced to his knees by many hands: his clothes and boots being ripped away from him physically in the process and torn to shreds; his wallet… and his precious photos… received the same treatment to be scattered as fragments and trampled beneath many pairs of feet. Then more than one set of fingers had twisted into his hair, all but yanking the short fur-soft tufts out by the roots and Dean had been half forced to crawl and half was dragged bodily fully into the conclave of the AE.

That had been some hours ago. Hell, for all Dean knew it might have been some _days_ ago. He had long since lost track of _everything_, even down to which bit of his body hurt the most. For it all hurt. Every last molecule of it.

He had been forced to lie in the centre of the large room across 'his' bench: a specially made-to-measure padded solid metal piece of bondage equipment that had been bolted to the floor, with numerous lockable straps and attachments that could hold Dean securely into whichever position happened to be desired for the night's 'entertainment'.

This particular time, the required position was simple. The ex-slave was down on all fours as if begging: his thighs forced out wide by means of a spreader bar holding his knees apart... no need for his legs to actually be tied down as he could barely move them anyway… and his arms were stretched out from his body at crucifix right angles with his wrists chained so tightly to separate benches positioned each side of him that it was almost causing his shoulders to dislocate with every motion forced on his body.

They had all had at least one go at him already and were showing no signs of slowing yet. The entire AE were intent on showing him that he did and would _always_ belong to them: they had marked him with ever blossoming bruises from fists and open slaps, nail imprints, bite-marks and small but vicious stabs caused by high heels; they had covered him with their fluids as symbol of their ownership.

Dean had had so many cocks forced down his throat that his stomach had already rebelled twice and tried to expel every last drop of its contents despite his desperate attempts to try and contain it. His red raw ass dripped with nearly as much of his own blood as it did of their combined cum.

Even the female membership of the group, who usually preferred to use their pet slave at exclusive one-on-one, or occasionally 'women-only', evenings, were incensed enough at him for trying to dare escape them to throw away their haughty attitudes and inhibitions in front of their male counterparts and eagerly join in the abuse, pulling low recliner stools up in front of Dean so as to be able to lay back and force him to pleasure whichever preferred orifice with his mouth even while he was being raped from behind.

The assaults had gone on for so long and were so sustained, that he was grateful for any pause, no matter what the reason.

Right now, the Surgeon, as Dean had always called him in his mind, was lying over him after having finished his turn, deliberately pushing down with all his weight so as to put maximum compression on the ex-slave's already numerous pressure-stressed and broken ribs and cause him to struggle to breathe.

But at least, because one of the new Heads of the organisation was there, it meant that the others had backed off temporarily and Dean's mouth was momentarily clear, which as far as _he_ was concerned was a blessing.

He must have sighed with his relief. Which was a mistake. For the next thing Dean knew, the Surgeon had reached his long, elegantly manicure-fingered hand over and grabbed the trapped slave's head in a crushing grip. "Think it's nearly over, do you, Four-five? Nowhere near it!"

Dean grunted as his head was pulled back by his hair, causing agonising pain to his strapped-down wrists and shoulders, and roughly twisted to the left before being slammed back down against the bench again.

"Careful, Dominic!" came a warning voice from behind them both. "We don't want him _too_ damaged. Only enough to remember his place."

The Surgeon purposely moved his body up on Dean's so that he could rest his own head against their 'pet's'. "Don't worry, Matthew: I'm just _reminding_ him of his place… And your place has always been _here_." The anger in the hiss against his ear at the latter words made Dean shudder despite himself. "Four-five or Dean Winchester: I don't care what you want to call yourself. I don't care that you wanted to get away from that little royal prick: I _get_ why you were so desperate to!

But you should have come straight back here from that plane crash. You should never have run from us: it was _stupid_ of you to think that we'd ever let you go.

You are ours. Right from a child. We've watched you grow up. We've always protected you: never let anyone get _too_ violent with you; not mark you up _too_ much…

You'll never leave here again. See that?" And Dean was being forced to stare right across the large room towards a large, clear glass box with what looked like a made-up bed inside it and a table and chair, and a… freestanding toilet and basin… that stood against the wall some distance away from where he was shackled. "That's your home from now on. It's a cage. A very _special _cage that's been purposely built for you the moment we saw that footage on the news.

And it's got very special warding both inside and out: it can only be opened by the members of the AE… we'll all have open access to you: any time, whatever whenever we want. And you _will_ do as you're told, Four-five. _Believe_ me you will.

And anyone else or any-_thing_ else who tries to open it…? Well, let's just say that there won't be anything left of them to try a second time...

Your new home's got everything that you'll need from now on. No clothes of course: they won't be necessary anymore. Just somewhere to rest, when you can get some, and somewhere to eat. You can live comfortably in it, under constant watch of course. Until you learn to behave yourself again, of course.

And when you _do_," He went on. "We've been looking at that brand on your back. You've been very naughty: it looks like you've been cutting at it, and trying to burn bits of it away…

Don't worry, _Dean_." Now there was pure menace in his voice. "We're not going to put it back as it was: we've enlisted extra help now… we're going to make the enchantments in it even _stronger_. We're going to be able to _control_ it this time. You're _never_ going to be able to run from us again." The surgeon's teeth closed around the trapped man's earlobe in a painful warning, drawing enough blood to begin to drip down Dean's neck but fortunately not _too_ tight to bite the appendage right off: "You stupid little _idiot_. You should have _known_ that we'd _never_ let you go."

The crowd around them laughed as Dean felt tears overflow from his eyes. The man who was currently all but crushing him was right: he _had_ been stupid. He should have known that he could never escape what he was. He would never be _anything_ more than just a slave…

A stupid, useless slave.

Even as Dominic began to finally move from his back and step away to allow another member access to the helpless man, grimacing and cursing at the stains of blood and cum on his usually immaculately clean and pressed pants as he did so, Dean's attention was caught by a slight movement beside one of the legs of the bench on which he was trapped.

To his horror, as he hastily tried to blink his vision clear, he realised that his miniature friend was there. Tiny was creeping carefully forward, from the rear of the bench to the front, trying not to slide on the sodden and slippery marble floor. Dean could see little bloody footprints beginning to spread and disperse in the mess and prayed that no one else would be able to...

Then the little elf was looking up and realising that he had been noticed. The human didn't dare do anything that might draw anyone else's attention: he could only stare anxiously down at Tiny and plead with his eyes to try and tell him to run…

_Please_ run.

Tiny's face was white with shock: it was obvious that he had never even imagined _half_ of what he must have seen happen to Dean that day.

But then his small lips were turning down grimly and he gave one short nod up at his (to him) gigantic friend, and then he was climbing up onto the bench with lightning fast movements that Dean _hoped_ that only he had noticed, almost slipping and falling back down from all the gunk still on his feet that he had just been having to wade through, but persevering stubbornly until he was standing beside the man's right shoulder

Then the human only just managed to choke back a choked gasp and a 'no!' as Tiny somehow managed to slither his entire body into the very narrow gap between the natural slight 'V' of Dean's sternum and where it met the hard padded bench and crawl down just enough into it to be completely hidden.

Dean felt his heart rate shoot up exponentially: the instant whoever was next in the queue to rape him began to mount, Tiny would be crushed beneath the weight of _both_ their bodies. And there was nothing that he could do about it at all: not without calling attention to the elf's presence. Tears of frustration at his own uselessness prickled at his eyes once again…

But then he felt two minute hands pressed up against his chest as if the elf was bracing himself for something…

And then there was a sudden burning pain like two burning needles on fire scoring into the thin flesh covering his heart…

Even as Dean felt the pain of another man forcing his cock inside him and tensed involuntarily to try and take all the weight on himself and himself _only_, there was a commotion at the other end of the luxurious hall, and to his relief he got a slight reprieve as his new tormentor's attention turned to what was causing the distraction and the man pulled away from him again

In fact, they were _all _turning.

Dean could almost have sobbed as momentarily, with all the AE being seemingly distracted, he was left alone to his shame and his pain. But he couldn't help himself from also trying to twist his exhausted body to try to see what was causing the interruption…

Someone else was being dragged into the large ornate gilded room. Someone covered by what looked like a sack and bound round in weighty, clinking chains that were heavy enough to cause the muscled black-uniformed military-trained bodyguards to huff a little as they lugged the person in…

Dean's heart all but stopped in terror. Was it Sam?

Please God, let it not be Sammy…

Tears of relief prickled at his eyes once more as the newcomer was bodily picked up and dropped physically into a large uncomfortable-looking throne-like chair that has something painted on the floor around it, and the rough hessian-like cloth was yanked away to reveal…

… a figure dressed in what had once been a smart black suit but now was scuffed and torn: "Hello, darlings: are you going to tell me what this is all about…?"

Then he was looking around the luxuriously decorated room while trying to hide his smirk: just who did they think they were dealing with? The chains with the etched runes might have bound an ordinary demon, but _him…?_ No, the only thing _he_ had to worry about was that fucking sigil that surrounded the chair on which he was now sat, although… there were a lot of strange auras in the room that gave warning of other powerful supernatural defences as well…

To this end, he decided that seeking out a weakness… _any_ weakness… in the Devil's Trap that contained him would be the most sensible plan for the time being, whilst keeping the fact of his easy escape from the chains his secret, and his secret alone. Besides, he had to also work out the best way to deal with the congregated mass of angry people that were now moving to surround him…, and then his scarlet-tinged eyes were looking through a gap in the mob and falling upon the bruised and bloody figure kneeling on the floor across the room…

"Squirrel! What are _you_ doing here?"

Dean couldn't help but wince as he felt the tension in the room impossibly increase immediately after the words…

"_Mister_ Crowley." The voice was calm and soft, albeit delivered in an unpleasantly nasal voice, and the speaker was a short, smartly dressed man…

The entire room fell instantly silent.

"_Mister_ Crowley… You knew. You _knew_ that our Dean was still alive…"

The demon didn't bother to hide his smirk this time: "Well… if you were stupid enough to lose him Mr Goldman, who was I to enlighten you…?"

The man nodded thoughtfully. There was no smile at all on his face. "Fair enough. We offered you alliance: we offered deals. We even let you use our Dean as part of them…

And you betrayed us. You and that Angel…"

"Ah, now that wasn't me." Crowley hastened to cut in. "That fucking Angel betrayed all of us! How was _I_ to know that he had ambition to be a God…?"

"Well," Now there was a hint of a smile. "_That_, at least, has brought highly profitable opportunities for us. We have made some very powerful new associates, and got rid of Castiel, so it has worked out well for us…

And now we have _you_." Crowley had to admit that when Matthew Goldman _did_ smile, it was probably as terrifying as the demon's own one was to _his_ victims… But this time, the King of Hell _was_ the victim…

And when the angry crowd began to close in close around the Devil's Trap, with some now holding long handled vicious-looking weapons… some with blades or spikes; some with heavy clubs; some both… in their hands…

… Well, despite himself, Crowley felt a small shiver of dread run down his spine…

"_Dean!_"

The man in question startled at the hissed whisper directly into his ear. He had been craning his neck and shoulders as much as physically possible desperate to try and see what was happening… although the moment he heard the thud and thump of sharp and heavy metal implements against unyielding skin and corresponding grunts and groans begin, he had a good idea of what was happening to the trapped demon…

Stupidly he had thought he had been left alone by the distraction of Crowley's arrival. Dean turned, or tried to turn his head, still strapped down tightly as he was to the bondage bench and straining his painful shoulders as he did to see…

… Captain Gastrian of the Aes Sidhe hovering beside him, his dual wings beating so fast so as to make him appear motionless in the air while looking down at the sloshy mixture of assorted liquids on the floor beneath him with distaste and a genuine concentrated determination to not forget and risk landing anywhere within the vicinity!

Dean stared with disbelief: "How in the hell did _you_ get here?!" Luckily his throat was so sore that his exclamation only emerged as a painful, barely audible croak, but the winged being understood him anyway.

"We told you at our first meeting, Dean, you are now one of the entities that we are bound to protect: from the moment you entered our world, you have been. The Shapeshifter has told us a lot about you: he is also in constant watch. He informed us that you have _always_ been very important to the Alpha Exousia, especially when you inadvertently became a physical link to our world, so it seemed more than certain that should they find out about your continued existence there would be immediate consequences. Hence we assigned a sentinel to you."

"A… sentinel….?" Dean couldn't make sense of the words: his head hurt and his body hurt and… nothing made any _sense_.

Gastrian smiled, the action lighting up his previously stern face. Instead of answering, he glanced significantly over at…

"Tiny?"

The elf grinned up at Dean from where he had wriggled back out of his hiding place and was easily climbing back down the bench to the ground: his minute hand as he waved was somehow glowing brightly…

"What the fuck…?"

"We still have unfinished business with the Alpha Exousia. It has not been forgotten that they sent Daevas to cause chaos among the beings of our realm: it nearly started a war." The dark-green uniformed Sith had turned serious again.

"We didn't ask Taenairean to look after you, he volunteered: these little yard-elves have their uses after all. He has endeavoured to keep us informed of all your exploits since our first meeting at the older human's house… the one you call 'Bobby'… although he was first to admit that you were good at giving him the run-around-everywhere!

He was in touch with us the instant he was able to, to let us know about their arrival and your subsequent abduction. We sent back instructions for him to keep us informed and stay with you at all costs so as to be able to lead us to them, while we prepared one of our garrisons for imminent battle. We hope to end this today once and for all, Dean…

For us. And for _you._"

There was a pause. Dean somehow felt it was significant… but he didn't know why. "Well, don't just stand… flap… fly… there! Get them in here! What are you waiting for?" His hissed whisper may have still been unpleasantly raspy but his frustration was clear.

Gastrian had the grace to look embarrassed… if the slight green blush suddenly blooming across his face was anything to go by. "We lost contact with Taenairean the instant the wheeled metal box that you were contained in crossed the threshold of this building. And he has had tremendous difficulty re-establishing it…"

Dean waited. The Sith guardian looked expectantly at him, but all the human was aware of now was that he was probably never going to be able to use his arms again: the agony in his shoulders was now making him want to vomit again but from pain this time. "But _you're_ here…" he eventually ventured.

"Only because the elf had the excellant idea to use _you_ as the energy source for a portal!" Dean was grateful that no one else in the room could (hopefully) hear Gastrian's shouted exclamation: "There is so much warding in this whole building, against so _many _things, that we simply can't get through!"

"I don't…" But then Dean stopped as he remembered the hot needle-like pain from a few minutes before: "That was Tiny. His _hands_…"

"Our magic seems to be useless here against all the auras and sigils that surround us. We did not anticipate how _powerful_ these humans had become or what allies they must now have to be able to create such effecting spells…

But you, Dean. You belong to both this world… _and_ ours now. That is simple fact! And because of that, and because it is caused by _not_ magic or witchery or enchantments, it means that the warding can not affect you. They have been created specifically to contain and repel all of those… and you are _none_ of them. Instead, you just naturally... _are!_

By simply existing, you create an intuitive link between the two realms. Your very body _is_ the link. That is how the Alpha Exousia managed to use you to send the Daevas through to ours… and I _know_ that is not your fault." He hastened to add as he saw the human's face fall once again at the suggestion. "But it is. Our little Taenairean was able to harness that just enough for _me_ to slip between the barriers of the dimensions… but neither he _nor_ I are strong enough to hold a full spatial portal open enough for our troops to follow, not with the power that is in this room preventing us. There is only one _possible_ way to do that…"

He paused.

Dean waited, aware of the mocking laughter of the mob across the room beginning to lessen as they began to lose interest in torturing their latest target…

Then they would be turning their attention back to him…

He was running out of time.

"Which is…?" He finally prompted.

The Sith stared straight into Dean's face: the human idly noticing that the winged being's moustache was beginning to show grey hairs amongst the deep brown. "I thought I had just explained…"

"No." The man rasped at him: "You haven't!"

"You must hold the portal open _yourself_."

"I… _what?_"

"The Alpha Exousia would have used magic on you when you were unconscious; worked spells on your body to force it into becoming a link to our realm and allowing those… monsters through to cause such havoc. But you can do it yourself, Dean. You belong to our world just as much as you do this one: you can enter it any time you desire just by thinking of it…"

"But…" Momentarily Dean's lack of ability to speak was _not_ to do with the pain and dryness of his throat. He had to voluntarily re-enter the fairy world? He _hated _the fucking fairy world! More to the point, after the way that he had so determinedly shown that he _didn't_ want to stay there, he probably wasn't going to be well received on the other side either…

It might well prove to be a case of 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'…

"It would require concentration, little human. You can't return fully to our realm, not this time: instead you must use yourself as the link between the two, and that will not be easy. You will _have_ to hold yourself physically in the coincident of our two worlds, where the boundaries co-exist and can be crossed. The sigils around this entire building prevent any other way of doing so: even just a few seconds will allow our armies through.

You must do it, Dean. Taenairean and I will do our best to protect you while you do so, but as I have said, our magic is being made non-existent by the warding in here… But our troops are prepped in our world and _ready_ for physical battle. All they need is a way _through_…

You _must_, Dean. It's the only way we can finish this once and for all."

"But…" The adrenalin that had helped Dean survive the previous few hours was wearing off, and now the pain and humiliation… combined with a certain amount of blood loss… were beginning to come again at him via waves of agony, focusing on his chafed and bleeding wrists and painfully seizing shoulders… and his back where he had been beaten and whipped… and most of all his ass where he could still feel drips of whatever sliding down his thighs.

Dean fought against the sudden exhaustion that was threatening to take him into blessed unconsciousness, and tried to focus his now slightly dizzy concentration on the hovering guardian from the Aes Sidhe who had crossed dimensions for the sole reason of helping him…

Well, that and ridding themselves of the threat of the AE…

"What do I have to do?" he croaked.

The uniformed winged being smiled, a genuine smile that somehow filled the human's weary heart with warmth: "You remember our world? How beautiful it is? Concentrate on it.

Concentrate on the flowers and their scents; on the trees and the leaves; concentrate on the stream and the trickle of the water… Do you remember the waterfall, Dean? Concentrate on the waterfall and the rushing babble that it makes…

Just close your eyes and concentrate on it, my little human."

So Dean did.

He screwed his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to try and ignore the gradually subsiding noise of mocking laughter and thuds and thumps… and moans of pain… that were coming from across the room and tried to remember.

He tried to remember the smells… the wonderful sweet aromas of the flowers that had been all around him and filled his nostrils with such performed fragrance ... and he tried to remember the colours: the greens of the leaves as they rustled in the soft breeze; the pale pinks and dark pinks and yellows and reds and whites and oranges, and every other colour that he could name and not name; of the flowers that seemed to be _everywhere_… blooming on the trees and in the grass beneath his feet so concentrated that he had almost been afraid of crushing them momentarily before he had realised where he was and what had happened, like the most picturesque meadow…

He tried to remember the stream and how it sounded: a pleasant, melodic refrain that had seemed to combine with the soft rippling sound of the leaves to become hypnotic… welcoming…

… where he belonged.

The bouquet of the flowers seemed to be in his nose _now_: Dean could feel a strange deep peace coming over him and all his pain fading away…

He could hear the noise of the water in his ears: hear the burble and the gurgles and the splishing and the sploshing… he could feel small drops of moisture on his face as if he was so close to the stream that it was getting splashed. It was cool, and refreshing, and washing all his cares away…

"That's perfect, Dean." He wasn't even sure where the voice was coming from but the approval filled him with pride. "They're on their way."

He could hear the rush of the waterfall behind him: Dean couldn't help but try and raise his head from his uncomfortable position so as to be able to see it… so he could watch as the water gushed down the steeper parts and trickled down the lesser parts and soaked the green moss dotted with tiny yellow flowers that clung to every spare bit of rock… and smile at the little brightly-coloured wagging-tailed birds that darted from clump to clump, chasing minute bugs and warbling 'welcome home's' to him…

"Careful, little human. You're going too far through. You have to hold the coincident open for just a little bit longer…"

Dean came out of his trance with a start. The dream faded abruptly although he could still smell the flowers in his nostrils… or had that been just a delusion…

But then on looking around the large gathering room of the AE as best he could, he could see…

A battle being waged.

A very strange, one-_sided_ battle.

But definitely a battle.

The throng that had been surrounding Crowley were now dispersing with screams of terror and cursed shouts of threats. The members of the AE were running around mindlessly, the majority trying to cover their heads with the arms for protection against the, to them invisible, jabs and stabs of numerous short swords and other weapons. Women were shrieking in terror and stumbling off their power heels in their haste, breaking and twisting their ankles as they did, and men were shouting mixed cries of rage and curses, and calling for the guards to hurry up and do their fucking jobs and protect them…

They all seemed to be in disarray, not knowing which way to run, or whether to duck, or what was behind them, in front of them or above them…

But_ Dean_ could see numerous members of the dark-green uniformed Sith darting around on their wings, at first glance as chaotic and seemingly random as a multitude of dragon-flies dancing over a body of water… but as he looked again, he could tell that instead it was a carefully organised and choreographed assault: some of the small beings were deliberately driving batches of humans into the non-magical but extremely _physical_ weapons of their comrades. Already some of his tormentors and rapists were down on the ground and not getting up…

But then the black-uniformed armed AE guards were rushing into the area on mass, armed with assault rifles and semi-automatics…. and pulling strange-looking masks with red visors on to cover their faces and make them look inhuman but seemed to somehow focus their cross-hairs on the swarming Sith with pinpoint accuracy. Even as Dean watched, the first one of his would-be rescuers was exploded into a mass of greenish blobs that coated the wall and dripped down…

"They're reinforcing!" Gastrian was yelling into his ear. "We need to bring the rest of the garrison through! Please Dean, you need to try again!"

The human twisted… or tried to… where he was still strapped down, to see the Captain and Tiny, who was on the bench again now, standing strong on either side of him, arms raised in readiness to defend his prone body from anything and everything as necessary. And from the rigidness of each of their stances, Dean didn't need to ask to know that he would be defended to their deaths…

He wasn't about to let that happen.

"I'll do better this time."

"You're doing amazing, my friend." Gastrian didn't need to look around at him for Dean to know his words told the truth. "Whatever happens, I could never have expected you to do any more than you have."

"I can do _better_." Dean told him firmly, and closed his eyes once more. Trying to ignore the now terrified screams of pain and pleas for mercy in the room instead of the previous jeers, he thought once more of the stream, and the trees, and the waterfall…

It wasn't working.

Dean summoned up everything that John Winchester had taught him about how to calm his racing heart-rate and how to relax and steady his nerves because his life might depend upon him being in control…

He needed to be in _control_.

With one final deep breath in, Dean let the tension that was holding his eyes tightly shut ease, blew the air slowly and steadily back out of his lungs, and thought of Fairyland!

It was easier now: he concentrated on the waterfall. He had found it peaceful when he had first been there, before he had realised that it wasn't a dream and that he had actually been abducted. Now he concentrated on the sound of the splashing, tumbling water, and the welcoming chirps of the birds, and the buzz and hum of the insects… and before long he could feel the cold refreshing spray against his face and feel the warmth of the flower-perfumed-laden breeze waft over his body.

"That's good, Dean."

The voice wasn't Gastrian's this time. Dean opened his eyes and turned… he could feel that he was still tied down but… he could see the room that he was in… _and_ he could see the realm of the Aes Sidhe and the fairies… superimposed on each other like two completely different movie films being run onto the same cinema screen at the same time.

"You're standing in the doorway to both worlds." The speaker wasn't a Sith. He was taller, far taller. From Dean's distinctly awkward angle of view, he looked just about more human size but slender and with a shimmering silvery complexion, dark almost jet black hair, and deep black-irised eyes that seemed to look beyond Dean's broken body to see instead directly into his soul. The new being _also_ had wings, but not the duel sticking-out-at-fixed-angles ones of Gastrian and the other members of his kind: instead, his were larger and more angelic in shape, rising gracefully from behind each of his gilded-armour covered shoulders but, rather than being covered in feathers like Castiel's, these were seemingly made out of spun threads of shimmering silk that shone with an incredible iridescence of soft colours with every caress from the warm breeze.

And he was wearing a crown…

Behind him stood a multitude of other beings: some small and elf-like; others around Gastrian's height; some taller; some _much_ taller. From pictures in books, Dean recognised dwarves and… he shuddered… fairies, and gnomes and… what the fuck: were those _centaurs?_... and other animals that he _could _identify easily such as stags and bears and wolves… and a hell of a lot that he _didn't_ have a clue about…. beings with wings, and beings without. Beings with four legs and beings with two. Beings that gave semblance of being human-like… and beings that didn't…

The only things that they had in common was they all wore, in some variation or other suitable for each of their kind, the dark-green uniform of the Aes Sidhe: the guardians of their world.

_And_ they all wore the stern, stolid, contained expressions of soldiers who knew they were about to go into immediate battle.

"Our vanguard needs our help, Dean." The King of the realm was now speaking again. "Concentrate on the waterfall, but concentrate on something in _your_ world as well. Keep both images in your mind. It will help you to hold the dimension portal open…"

He was smiling even as he stepped forward, into Dean's view and then somehow _through_ it, leaving the man with the tickling sensation of a rush of warm air that encircled his body briefly and then passed by : "It's very good to finally meet you, little human. I've heard so much about you and am looking forward to welcoming you as a full member of my court. But for now, just concentrate on the portal. Choose something of your world as an anchor to it. Keep both in focus: only a few moments will be necessary…"

As the rest of the… whatevers… also converged on him, Dean hastily closed his eyes again. He needed to think about something from home as an anchor?

There was only one thing that he thought of as Home, _period!_

His Sammy.

His brother's face came immediately into his mind: he could see that dimpled smile; he could hear that laugh. He could see those eyes looking into his own with such love…

Oh God, how Dean loved him!

Sam was the only good thing in his whole, fucking, shitty life… he would follow his younger brother anywhere even if he _hadn't_ been his slave… although… Dean had to admit that Sam had also been the cause of a lot of the worst of it all.

And to be honest, he couldn't really remember the last time that he had seen Sammy laugh… _really_ laugh. Probably the last time was when he and John had sneaked onto the campus at Stanford, and watched Sam as he had sat on the grass outside one of the buildings, laughing with his friends and a beautiful blonde girl that was holding his hand…

Shit: Dean should just have left him there. Nothing bad would have happened to Sam if he had just left him at College, safe and surrounded by all his friends and his girl… Well, except Brady as it turned out, and that was just a one-off…

He had only wanted to see Sammy again when he had broken in that night: he had missed him so much. And with John missing, he hadn't really had any _choice_ but to go to his brother: if he had been caught without a master or a close relative of his master, he would have been accused of being a run-away slave and immediately sentenced to death…

Dean wished with all his heart that he had just left Sam there… fuck the consequences… and not screwed up his life…

Tears were filling his eyes by now, but he was still feeling the rushes of warmth passing by and through him. Hastily Dean tried to regain his equilibrium: clamping his eyes shut tighter to try and squeeze the moisture away, he concentrated on focusing jointly on both his Sammy's deep dimples and incredible smile, and the trickling and gushing of the water that he could hear and feel splashing against his naked skin…

The heat from the bright sun felt wonderful on his back: somehow it felt calming to his many wounds. And the breeze was almost a caress, kissing away the pain…

And his body … somehow the bonds around him weren't as tight and restraining as they just had been only a moment before…

Dean risked opening his eyes once more to stare at his left wrist, trying to ignore everything that was going on in both the worlds beyond his vision. He could see it still bound and tied down so tightly that the blood was still wet on his arm from where the chains were cutting through the skin… but he was also aware of the warmth from the sun on his back…

He could _feel_ the warmth from the sun on his back.

Even as he watched his wrist, somehow… something changed. Or _he_ changed. Because the tight bonds seemed to tighten but he didn't feel any pain… well, no more than he was already… no, they weren't tightening, they were moving… or his _wrist_ was moving… no, the metal wasn't tightening, it was _slackening_ because there was nothing there for it to _hold_ tightly any more… the chains were simply passing through his skin; his flesh; his wrist, because Dean's arm wasn't physically _there_ to be held down momentarily…

The breeze grew stronger and more fragranced: the sounds of battle and the opulence of the AE meeting hall faded momentarily. Dean stared at his now unchained left wrist in disbelief, wincing in pain from his shoulder as it complained in agony as he began to use it to try and raise himself up a little so as to be able to look around…

The trees were rustling with life around him: Dean could now see the tiny fairies that he had first met when they had abducted him skittering and giggling amongst the branches, chasing the chipmunks and calling for him to come and play with them.

And there were other beings: pixies? imps? Dean didn't know but they were even tinier than the winged fairies, dressed in all different colours of green and standing no taller than common mushrooms and running to greet him like a multitude of Lilliputians meeting their very own Gulliver with welcoming smiles…

And beyond them all, there was a meadow full of flowers… even _more_ flowers, and life.

And beyond all _that_, through a gap in the trees, Dean could see the glittering spires and sparkling crystal-white towers of the palace and town beyond…

And then his attention was being called to something that was emerging from the trees just behind and to the left of him: something pure white, with a long flowing mane and tail, and it was trotting straight over to where he was laying on the bank beside the stream: it's hooves thudding into the soft dirt and shaking the ground slightly. Dean stared in disbelief as the long, spiralled, pearl-coloured and really _dangerous_ looking horn passed over his head until there were two large nostrils close enough to scent his face… and then suddenly the thing fucking _snorted_ at him: covering the human's cheek with hot moisture-filled breath.

"What the f…?"

Dean abruptly found himself completely back in the AE headquarters. It took him a minute to blink away the memory of what had just happened… had he just dreamt all of that? But the very next instant, he was looking around the room and taking in the scene…

It was like a living version of a fantasy action movie. Or one of the leading computer games. But with real knives and bullets. And real blood. And real bodies: human and otherwise. And bits of what had previously been living bodies. And the stench of violent death.

The AE mercenary henchmen had organised themselves into sections: some with the intent of defending their last surviving employers who had by now either fled or were cowering behind their men in terror, while the others were in turn regrouping then coordinating attacks on the King and the Aes Sidhe forces. The assault, although it must have been brief… Dean wasn't quite sure how long he'd been… in another fucking _dimension_… but the fighting had obviously already been vicious.

Even as he took in all the violence and the gore, Dean heard the King's shouted order above the chaos: "Aren't the outer doors sealed yet? None of them are to be allowed to live: their reign of terror ends _today_."

Even as he was responded to with affirmative cries, the AE were charging forward again: their masks and goggles glinting somewhat ridiculously red but their aim and fire power were frighteningly accurate.

The beings against them seemed out-matched: they had swords and other sharp weapons, and were obviously skilful with them as well as being very manoeuvrable either winged or not, plus a few sets of heavy hooves, but otherwise it seemed a foregone conclusion that, hampered without their magic, they would lose against the high-tech armoury and riot shields of the AE soldiers.

Dean had to help them.

But even as he was thinking that, the realisation was hitting him over what he had done…

Or not done, as the case actually was.

His left hand was now free from the bindings that had held him in situ for the last few hours….

The rest of his limbs were not.

His legs were still tethered together by means of the spreader bar, although at least they weren't actually chained to the bench. But his right wrist was still chained out from his body at such an awkward angle that he was amazed his shoulder hadn't dislocated yet, although at least he was now able to wriggle across the bench a little and ease the pressure on it…

Shit.

Desperately Dean went to screw his eyes tight shut again to try to be able to take himself back through to the other dimension enough to be able to release his right arm and lower limbs as well: scary snotty unicorn be _damned!_

But even as he did, his attention was caught by a small figure lying on the sticky floor beside the bondage bench. "Oh my god… _Tiny!_"

The little elf was motionless. Dean stretched his arm and shoulder as much as he physically was able to, gritting his teeth at the pain but at the same time not caring if it dislocated: all that mattered was being able to scoop his little friend up into his left hand.

To his relief, Tiny was still breathing. Dean could see a small stain of green spreading on his (recycled from the human's Iron Maiden t-shirt despite numerous grumbles and protests from the latter) tunic. Even as he was trying to pull it away one-handed so that he could see the damage beneath, Gastrian was there beside him: "It's not too bad, my friend. Here."

And the Sith's hands were starting to glow and give off little sparks from the fingertips as he applied them to the elf's chest. Dean felt his conscience ease as the green liquid stopped spreading and Tiny's eyelids began to flicker with mere unconsciousness.

Then Gastrian was immediately returning his attention to his duty of trying to protect any stray bullets or anything else from hitting his human protectee. "Don't worry, Dean. It's nearly over: we're winning!"

"Forgive me," Dean argued. "But how in the hell is _this,_ 'winning'?"

And indeed, there seemed to be as many dead in the room from the fairy realm as there were human bodies. Dean couldn't believe it: their seeming invisibility to everyone but him wasn't proving an advantage at all. The AE must have had far more allies than even _he_ had ever realised…

"Yes indeed," The Sith agreed without looking around from where he was once again hovering beside the bench. Had Dean just spoken that aloud? At that minute he was doubting everything he had ever known, and _that _was _saying_ something! "But have no fear, human. While some of our brave company have been drawing the attention of our enemy, the rest have been working on removing the wardings and sigils that have so successfully suppressed our magic. And they have been extremely complex: these humans were indeed _prepared_ for our attack."

He glanced back over his shoulder with a smile: "The only thing they forgot to factor in was _you_, my little friend!"

"I…?"

But Dean was distracted from his confusion by a sudden flaring of lights: bright explosive flashes of brightness that all but blinded him where he still knelt trapped by his arm. And the dazzling flares were accompanied by a roaring sound… a roaring and a rushing of tremendous wind as the seeming equivalent force of a tornado blustered and rumbled its way throughout the entire building, causing the bricks in the walls to shake on their very foundations…

And then, momentarily, there was total silence: an eerie, foreboding silence that made Dean's flesh crawl as if a thousand reapers had all arrived on the scene at once…

"The wardings are down!" It was the King of the fairy world's voice rallying his troops. "Finish them! No human is to be left alive, except our Dean of course! _Attack!_"

And all hell broke loose.

Now the assorted beings that served in the Aes Sidhe were reunited with their magic… and the remaining humans who made up the organisation known as the Alpha Exousia as both employers and employees, knew they were fighting for their very _lives_…

Dean could only desperately try to move Tiny under the dubious protection of the bolted-into-the-floor bench, laying the small body as carefully as he could beside the metal leg. He wished that he hadn't been so useless as to be startled by the arrival of the mythical unicorn in the other realm… how _stupid_ he was: he had wasted his one chance of escape. If only he could have got his other arm free as well… And now there was just so much noise and chaos happening around him… _too_ much noise. Too much violence.

It was reminding him of long buried memories of Hell: Dean started to get flashbacks. Of pain, even more than he was in at that moment; of broken bones and spaghetti-tangles of guts; of screams and the gurgle of blood in lungs; of the mocking laughter of Alastair as he worked…

A cacophony from across the room drew Dean's somewhat now stupored attention back to the present. One of the centaurs was charging down some of the AE mercenaries. Bullets flew at him and past him, but he was rearing on his hind legs and stamping down with all the might and weight of his heavy front hooves…

Skulls split apart even as the centaur himself fell, mortally wounded from too many shots that had found their marks…

Two of the black-uniformed AE men had staggered backwards, trying to evade the attack… and one had been careless enough in his haste to step across the Devil's Trap on the floor…

Even as Dean watched, Crowley was upon the unfortunate soldier.

He had spent the last few minutes since the entire battle had begun simply concentrating on healing his many, many wounds… but then… he was the King of Hell! He had had far worse! Just who the _hell _had these AE morons thought they were _dealing_ with?! He was more irritated about the destruction of his suit!

The chains that were supposed to be holding him had been obliterated with just one thought. And the Devil's Trap was useless against a living… well, suddenly completely and quite vindictively dead… bridge that Crowley could use to step on and across the sigil to escape it.

And the powerful auras and enchantments that he had felt pressing down upon him when he had first been brought into the building were no longer in existence thanks to the incredibly helpful fairy woodland creatures...

Momentarily Crowley thought about simply leaving: after all, he had _no_ desire to meet the King of the realm that he had helped send Daeva's through to. He wasn't quite sure _how_ he and the other beings from that dimension had suddenly happened to _be_ there, but that was just a mystery that the demon was quite happy to leave to be solved at some other time…

But then his eyes fell back upon Dean, who was still staring at him from his forced and uncomfortable-looking position on the floor and across that bench thing… and Crowley hesitated…

"You _bastard!"_

Dean startled, both from the sudden expletive from his right hand side _and_ by the abrupt involuntary abandonment of his post by Gastrian, which involved being sideswiped by the hard end of a baseball bat whilst in the midst of being occupied in a personal battle warding away the bullets of a determined group of soldiers to keep them from striking not only himself but the human ex-slave that he was protecting. The little Sith was struck so hard that he hit the nearest wall and fell to the floor in a daze.

But Dean couldn't worry about him for the moment. For the Surgeon was standing beside him with the bat, and a look of hatred on his face.

"I _told_ Matthew that before we did anything, we should redo that fucking brand on your back! The new designs would have stopped you from doing _anything_ without permission!

How could you betray us like this, Dean! We have always looked after you: how could you have turned your back on what you are!?

You are nothing but a stupid… useless… disobedient… fuck-up of a slave. You're a fuck-up, _period_."

Every word was ferociously punctuated by the beat of the baseball bat onto Dean's unprotected body and back. Desperately he tried to cover his head with his free arm: why the _hell_ had he let himself be startled back into this world by that unicorn? He had had the chance of releasing his right hand and arm as well, and he had been frightened off by a fucking horse with a _horn?_ With the agony of every new bone breaking, the man knew his attacker's words to be true…

"You have no name: you don't exist. You… never… have! You're just a… fucking… _number!_ A nothing! A _nobody!_ How _dare_ … you… _betray_ us!?"

Most of Dean's fingers and his collar bone were definitely already smashed from the force of the blows. As were more than a few bones beneath the whipped and beaten skin on his ribs on the back, or at the very _least_ they were fractured. The only thing he could be grateful for was that the Surgeon's fury gave him a terrible aim, and so far, he hadn't managed to simply crush the helpless man's skull in.

But it was only a matter of time.

"Mister Dominic, stop! You're going to kill him!" And to Dean's stupefaction, Demetrius was somehow there between himself and his attacker, trying to stop the assault even in the middle of the chaos all around them.

"We should have killed him _years_ ago!"

"But you can perhaps use him as a bargaining chip, sir! He's the only one in here these things _aren't_ attacking!"

He's the bastard that _brought_ them here, Demetrius! It's all… his… _fault!_ And damn _right_ I'm fucking going to kill him!"

And the Surgeon was hurling the bat at Demetrius with the intention of knocking him out of the way, and snatching instead for a revolver that one of his black-uniformed and masked men had only just reloaded: surprising the other enough that he lost first his concentration in the fight against an axe-wielding green-skinned nymph, and almost immediately after, his head.

The gun was aimed directly at Dean.

"Mister Dominic, _no!_"

The firearm went off, all but unnoticed amidst the hubbub of shots and screams in the room.

Demetrius wobbled on his what were suddenly two very shaky legs. He had stepped between the two men again in a desperate attempt to stop the Surgeon…

… and taken the bullet that had been meant for Dean.

Then Demetrius was falling uncontrollably to his side… and unfortunately directly onto the slave's right arm, which was still extended and strapped securely out from Dean's body…

Approximately two hundred pounds of solid muscle met taut and strained bone and sinew…

And the latter gave way.

Momentarily Dean couldn't even begin to understand what had just happened. He was jarred almost completely off the bench suddenly as the heavy body hit his right arm: his freed left hand luckily giving just enough slack to stop his right shoulder from being completely torn away from his body. But when he looked…

His right arm was still attached to him at the elbow… just. His radius and ulna had taken the full force and weight of the falling man, and shattered, causing sharp, jagged pieces of bone to all but explode outwards through the skin as response to the gravity-forced impact. What was left of his forearm was trapped beneath the body of the fatally wounded man… and _all_ that was left of it was pieces of white and a terrible splatter of blood.

And then the pain hit.

Dean screamed: he couldn't help it. All of his resolve to not show the hurt, to not show any weakness because of the threat of future repercussions went out of the window. The agony was so great that he could do nothing but scream because of it, and try to catch his breath, and scream again. Hell rushed into the forefront of his brain once more…

The Surgeon smirked and raised the revolver to shoot Dean again: this time execution-like directly into the skull.

But he never got the chance to pull the trigger a second time.

He was thrown physically across the room to hit the wall on the other side _hard_. Even as Dominic tried to get up and dash to safety through the single escape route seemingly still protected by his men, he suddenly felt…

And then his neck twisted round almost completely back on itself of its own accord and snapped with extreme prejudice.

The Surgeon was dead before his body hit the floor.

"_Squirrel!_ Here, I've got you!" Crowley was beside the older Winchester, already forgetting the man he had just killed with a single thought. Immediately he was snapping the remaining manacles and chains with a simple click of his fingers and pushing the heavily bleeding body of Demetrius away with a flick of his wrist. "I've _got_ you, Dean!"

And the demon was carefully pulling the human up from his uncomfortable position, doing his best not to jar all the broken bones. Instantly Crowley set about healing Dean's injuries, marvelling at himself even as he did: he _never_ helped anyone without a deal of some sort being involved, although he had lied to Bobby about not being able to… but to have left the man in his arms to suffer another moment was something that… he just couldn't have done.

Even as Dean's arm and rest of his body was reforming and cracking back into place, the demon became aware that the other hadn't spoken a word… if the single solitary whimper was to be discounted. And the man's complexion was dead white… _dead_ white… the blood had drained so much from his face that the usually pink and inviting full lips were grey.

And his pupils were so dilated that there was any green to be seen…

And Crowley wasn't convinced that temporarily Dean was aware of _anything_ going on around them.

"You're in shock, Squirrel. Let's get you out of here." Even as he was speaking, the King of Hell was slipping the still torn and bloody jacket of his suit off and, after managing to pull Dean just about to his feet, used it to wrap around him like a small skirt, using the sleeves to tie it into place.

But as he went to dematerialise them both out of there, Crowley felt a sudden, and extremely _powerful_ energy around him that he just couldn't break away from. It was with a tremendous amount of annoyance that he looked around to see…

… the King of the Fairy Realm standing just as equally angry behind them. The battle that had been ranging around them was over, (it had actually only taken a few minutes from the arrival of the first vanguard of the Sith for them to be victorious: the AE had been taken enough by surprise for the counter attacks to be too little and _far_ too late)… and it was his omnipotence that was containing the demon where he stood.

"Where do you think you are taking our little human? And why have you covered him? Nudity doesn't matter to us: bodies are just as nature intended them to be and are not to be ashamed of. We only wear clothes because we like the colours!"

"Believe me: the lack of clothes at the moment is about humiliation. And I think that Dean's had enough of that for the day, don't you?" Crowley snapped in response.

"Then it is best that he returns home with us to recover. We also have healers there, _good_ ones. You have done your best with that arm, demon, but _we_ can do _better_."

Despite himself, Crowley glanced down to Dean's arm, and cursed beneath his breath. Yes, he had been able to pull the man's skin and bones back together, but there were still a vicious few scars left on his forearm as reminders of the day. This is what you get, he chasticed himself, for not practising: the first chance he got, he was going to explode a few of his minions and reform them until he could do it perfectly every time.

"It's healed enough. He's a Hunter: he'll just be pleased he can still use it! And he won't _care_ where I'm taking him as long as it's away from _here!_"

Crowley drew himself up to his full height and stared defiantly across at the slender figure of the King of the other world. The deep, black-irised eyes regarded him deliberately and with far too much seeming calm for the liking of the other, but they were also taking note of how the demon was instinctively putting himself protectively in front of Dean…

"And you? Your name is…?"

"Crowley, your 'highness'." The demon couldn't help but be snarky: after all, he was a king _himself_, albeit a self-proclaimed one!

"Crooow-leeeigh…" The King spoke the word as if testing the sound on his tongue…. and it was giving him a tremendous distaste in his mouth from doing so… "It was with your assistance that these humans sent Daevas to my realm…"

"A misunderstanding, that's all." The King of Hell hastened to point out. "An error on my part for which I apologise: I was misled and then betrayed by my feathered associate who has now saddled me with bloody Leviathans to worry about! I did _not_ intend to cause any bad feelings between myself and you…"

The silver-complexioned being looked like he was going to take askance at that, but then they were both being interrupted by a deep, raspy and somewhat concussed sounding voice: "There was a unicorn… a fucking _unicorn!_"

"I think you've taken a too hard hit to the head, Dean." Crowley began but was silenced as the other King also responded with genuine interest: "You saw one of our unicorns, little human? They came to you…? That's _wonderful_."

"A fucking great big-ass white horse with a fucking great big-ass horn? It _ain't_ wonderful. And why _me?_" Dean wasn't lucid enough to realise how impudent he was being, but the King of the other realm seemed in no way bothered by being spoken to so curtly.

"It is a great honour: they only come to the most pure…"

"I ain't no fucking virgin…" Crowley snorted with amusement despite himself at the unintentional irony of Dean's slightly slurred words.

"Most pure _soul_-wise…" the King corrected him with a gentle smile.

"I ain't _that_ either."

"You under-estimate yourself, my little human." Now the smile had disappeared but the jet-black eyes were earnest as they seemingly stared right through the human's still blood-smeared skin to what lay beneath: "What you have had to do simply to survive, or what you have been forced to do under extreme torture and duress has contaminated _some_ of your soul, yes, but at the core… it is still unblemished.

It shines with such _purity_. Yes, it does." As Dean shook his head slightly and the blank expression seemed to temporarily clear enough for him to look ready and able to argue. "The sovereigns of our realm felt it: they felt it last time, didn't they? They came to you before…

They are called by your soul and what you are… _I_ see it. Even this… demon… is aware of it. Let go of what they have _made_ you be and simply be _yourself_, my little human. Let go, and let your soul _soar_."

Dean stared at the silver-skinned King as if in a trance: his lips moving seemingly noiselessly. But Crowley was near enough to hear the words that were murmured so low as to be all but inaudible…"But I don't know _how_ to…"

Then Dean was looking around and seemingly becoming fixed on first the head-backwards facing body of the Surgeon, and then of the red-splattered flesh-coloured jigsaw pieces that had only a few minutes before made up the fleeing form of Matthew Goldman, and then at the rest of the remains of what had been a short but out of all proportion violently vicious skirmish… Flashbacks of Hell rose to the surface once more and the ex-slave's eyes glazed over as horrific memories began to bombard him again…

The demon took pity. "With your permission, '_Sire_'," he began, while trying to restrain all of his natural instinct for sarcasm… now was really _not_ the time, however tempting… "I meant no disrespect to you or your realm, and I apologise most profusely for my actions. I was betrayed and tricked as well, which has now left me a major mess of my own in this world to clear up.

But I would like to take Dean out of here and to somewhere safe. He needs to rest and recover, and believe me, as soon as he is back fully functioning in his right mind, he will be determined to return to his brother anyway: they may have a very strange co-dependent on-off love-hate relationship, but you wouldn't want to get in the way of _either_ of them if you try to keep them apart… _believe_ me!"

The King of the fairy dimension stared at him… and then at the battered, bruised and still bloody human, whose few moments of slightly more clarity had definitely passed and who was now simply looking like he would completely collapse if it were not for the demon's strong arm supporting him around his jacket-tied waist. Finally he nodded: "We will be seeing you again soon, Dean: our home is your home and you will always be welcome.

And Crowley?

I would suggest, your _Highness_," The sarcasm now in _his_ voice matched the King of Hell's own: despite himself, the demon was impressed. "I would suggest that this should be our first, and our _last, _meeting."

Crowley paused deliberately before responding. "I concur whole-_heartedly_, darling! Come on, Squirrel: let's get you out of here."

"Sir?" The soft deep voice made them all turn. Demetrius was lying glassy-eyed and near to death on the slippery with blood and guts floor where he had been flung to by the demon… but he had remained conscious and very sensibly, _silent_, while the very last few of the AE had been slaughtered around him.

He had seen the dark-suited captive be brought into the room that short time before in chains, before being stabbed, burnt and beaten bloody with weighted clubs on long handles that could cover the distance between the chair and the edge of the Devil's Trap without risk of any of them entering it… and yet the man… being… thing… had just healed himself with a thought and a careless shrug while Demetrius had watched with disbelief… and awe.

And more than a little _terror_.

The muscled now-ex-bodyguard wasn't quite sure what sort of supernatural entity it was that could _do_ something like that… _or_ what sort of things had also suddenly appeared in that room that, even though invisible to him had _certainly_ made him aware of their presence via the violent consequences of their arrival… and with whom the powerful dark-suited being was now holding a strange one-sided conversation with… and he was probably going to be killed at any moment now they all realised he was still alive… but Demetrius felt he just had to speak up…

Because he wanted to do just one good thing for Dean.

"Sir? His bags are in the SUV in the garage. _And_ the photos that he carries in his wallet. I took them out while he was asleep on the way here: I knew they wouldn't let him keep them. I was hoping to try and give them back to him at some point. Here." With a far more than shaking hand, Demetrius was trying to delve in his pocket to find the ignition keys and hand them over. "And Dean? For what's it worth, I'm _so_ sorry: I wish I'd never found you…"

The ex-slave gave no indication that he had heard him: Crowley was ready to swear from the blankness of the green eyes that Dean's mind was anywhere now but there. Demetrius closed his eyes and blinked back tears: he deserved nothing less. Death would be his reward, and he deserved it for dragging that poor slave back to the clutches of the AE…

Even as Crowley considered and reached to take the keys, the King of the fairy realm also considered… and moved to touch the ex-bodyguard's shoulder. Demetrius started slightly at the touch and opened his eyes once more… then the last lingering remnants of blood were draining completely from his dark complexion as he could suddenly see the winged, blood-encrusted armoured, silver-_skinned_ being…

"You are a first-born, yes?"

"I…" Demetrius didn't know what to say: "A what?" But then another, smaller figure was flying haphazardly across the room and landing somewhat clumsily beside him.

Gastrian's head was covered with dried and drying green blood where he had hit it hard against the wall… but he was a soldier of the Aes Sidhe: he would recover. He dropped to one knee in supplication to his King: "Yes, he is, Sire. _I_ can feel he is. And he saved our human."

"I saw."The King nodded. "But I asked a question, Demetrius. You are a first-born? The first off-spring of your parents?"

This time the heavily bleeding man understood… although he didn't quite understand why he wasn't already dead. "The first? Yes, sir. And the last. My daddy kicked what should have been my little sister out of my momma: she could never have any more after that. That's why I grew up like I did: I was never going to let anyone else ever hurt her… but it turned out I couldn't protect her from cancer…" Despite himself, Demetrius felt tears fill his eyes at the thought of his mother, and how disappointed she probably would have been with him…

But the King of the fairy realm was speaking again: "You have a choice, Demetrius. You are welcome to come to our world and live the rest of your life in peace there… Or die here today."

The man stared at him… and didn't pause… not even to consider how in the hell the strange powerful being had known his name. "I owe no allegiance here, sir, and I've a lot to make amends for. I'll come with _you,_ please…

Do you think Dean will ever forgive me?"

The King smiled down at him: "You will get the chance to ask him again, Demetrius. I promise. Take him to our healers immediately." This was addressed to his men. "Take _all_ our wounded to the healers, and bring our dead home for honouring. And make this place ready for it all to burn: it must seem to be simply a terrible human tragedy. Nothing else: no sign at all must be left that we were here…"

Crowley took his cue to leave. Half dragging, half-carrying Dean out of the blood-spattered room, he passed countless more bodies out in the corridors beyond the hall, and eventually found the sealed parking lot.

Pushing the now nearly-unconscious man onto the rear seat of the SUV, the jacket flapping dangerously low around his waist to all but expose Dean's naked body again, Crowley climbed in himself and started the engine. It wasn't a surprise when the garage door seemed to magically open by itself just long enough for the vehicle to exit the underground garage before almost immediately closing again, this time permanently until the fire investigators would finally manage to gain access some time the following day…

With a knowing smirk, the demon began to drive: leaving first the building, then the street, then Washington DC itself, and finally the State behind him.

Eventually he saw a sign for a motel and turned the SUV off the freeway. It felt almost an exciting novel experience to Crowley as he moved to go into the reception, (although he had to create the cash payment with a snap of his fingers), and then pull the vehicle up in front of the chosen room.

Quickly transferring Dean's bags, complete with photos, into the room, Crowley returned for the man. The human's eyes, the green far outweighed by red bloodshotness from being near enough unconscious, blearily met his own, and the demon decided that it would be more sensible to cheat. With another snap of his fingers, they were both in the room and the door was firmly shut behind them.

But as Crowley moved to try and help the other into one of the beds, Dean pulled away from him to uncertainly, and with more than a little wobbling in his legs and gingerly-slow movements, wander across the small room and to the bathroom. The demon heard the hot water in the shower switch on and, with a sigh, settled himself into a chair to wait: "Now I know how Feathers always used to feel…"

It was quite a while after that he started to wonder… "Squirrel? You okay in there? It's been a half hour…"

Trying the door and finding it unlocked, he went in. Only to find Dean had dumped the ripped jacket on the linoleum and was now simply curled up in a foetal position on the floor of the shower tray, seemingly unaware that his exhausted body was shaking and shivering beneath the now running ice-cold water. Crowley clicked the power off and stood for a moment, considering…

… then he was also stepping into the cubicle, settling himself fully clothed down on the soaking wet floor of the shower beside the other and simply putting his arms around the trembling man. It would be a wonder to Crowley for a very, very long time after that Dean allowed himself to just be held: neither spoke; neither had anything to say; both were deep in their own thoughts… they just sat in the pool of cold water at the bottom of the shower tray in silence… together.

It would _also_ be a wonder to Crowley for a very, very long time after, when he awoke some hours later. The demon was unable to remember the last time he had ever slept… not for centuries. Not since he had gone to Hell. But he had fallen asleep _that_ night_…_

Dean was gone. And so were his bags.

Crowley crossed to the outer door of the motel room and looked around the parking lot: to his surprise, the SUV was still there. There was also a policeman present, who seemed to be taking down a statement from an extremely animated young man who kept gesturing at an empty parking space…

The King of Hell stepped back inside the empty motel room to get his jacket and pull it back on, magically making sure it was completely pristine and unmarked once more… he had appearances to keep up, after all…

… and stood just for a moment feeling strangely…

… he wasn't sure _what_ he felt strangely, but he did…

… what was he thinking? He was the fucking King of _Hell! He_ didn't feel emotions…

… but he _did_ feel…

… and then he shook himself out of it… he had fucking Leviathans to deal with, after all… and sighed… a deep, deep sigh…

… and then Crowley had vanished from the room in a blink of an eye, leaving it just as if nobody had ever been there at all.


	5. Chapter 5

"Dean? _Dean!_"

Slowly the older Winchester came back to himself. It took a long few blinks for him to realise that he had been standing and simply staring into… nothing… for long enough that his back was actually hurting from being so still.

And Sam was standing right there with him: his eyes so full of love and concern for his brother that Dean felt all his previous rage dissipate as if it had never even been there. The younger man had his arms held out as if he was desperate to touch the other, but was forcing himself not to…

"Dean? You okay?"

There was something wet on his face. Blankly, Dean put his hand up to his cheek… and his fingers came away with warm drops. He must have been crying. He didn't remember crying.

But he could still feel the tears running down his face… so he supposed he _must_ have been.

Sam watched him and sighed. It was rare that his brother showed any emotion… to _anyone_. Even to him.

Actually, scrub that… _especially_ to him.

But something had seriously upset Dean: there was no doubt about that. How Sam wished that the older man would just… let him in. Even if his brother didn't trust him… even if he had lost that privilege for the rest of his life… he hated to see the other man as distraught as he obviously was, and not be able to comfort him.

Not that Dean would probably _take_ comfort… he would probably just immediately pull away from Sam with a bashful grumble about 'chick-flick moments'… or actually, and far more likely at the moment given his previous anger, give a furious shove to the younger man's chest with a 'get the hell away from me'!

How Sam wanted to just put his arms around his brother and just hold him tightly.

And preferably, never let go.

But Dean had made it _extremely_ plain since they had met up again after the 'Amy incident', that he didn't want to be touched at _all_ by the younger man. And Sam was trying to respect his wishes: his brother had been forced enough by too many people throughout his life to do things that he himself hadn't wanted.

And to the younger brother's eternal shame, he knew that one of those people was _him_. And he couldn't always use the excuse of being soul-less… or, he thought ruefully, how had Dean put it earlier? 'You can't use the excuse of being possessed for _everything_ you ever did, Sam'… when he had.

No, he had wanted his brother so _much_ that he had taken the chance of having a sexual relationship with Dean under the pretext of 'looking after him'.

And it had taken far too long for him to realise that the older man was just… _letting_ him. Just because he had never ever had a choice about what any of the others… including their own father… had done, so Dean had assumed that he had never had a choice with his younger brother's demands either.

So now? Sam was _determined_ not to do anything in their personal lives that Dean might misconstrue as simply being a carry-on from his forced days of slavery. Despite their different personality traits and numerous disagreements, he knew his older brother still saw him as his… Sam hated to say the word '_master_' even in his own mind … and he just… didn't _know _what to do to take their relationship… as brothers; partners in Hunting; or perhaps even one day as true consensual lovers… forward…

Or even if Dean actually really wanted _any_ of the above...

… or not.

"Dean? It's alright. You're safe… whatever it is you're seeing: it's only a memory… it's not real, it's okay…"

Slowly the older Winchester came back in to his own mind: the images in his head fading and gradually being replaced by the solid wooden fence at his back… and the leaves being blown around the street… and his younger brother looking at him with genuine concern and love in his eyes…

"Sammy?"

The other heaved a tremendous sigh of evident relief, fought down the hundreds of questions burning at his lips, and simply smiled: "It's alright, Dean. Just try and calm your breathing down…. In… out… in… out. It's okay…"

Dean stared at him, touching his own cheeks with wonder at the tears running down: when had he started crying? But his own surprise at himself was quickly dispersing as suddenly all that mattered was standing in front of him…

… and he needed the other man so much. That was always his problem…

That he just loved his younger brother so _much_ that he would do anything, _anything_, just as long as they would be together…

Even if Sammy didn't want him in the same way…

Even if Sammy just walked away again… just like he always did…

He _always_ did…

"Dean? You okay?" And Sam was looking at him with genuine concern in his soft eyes. "I wish you'd just talk to me about whatever this is… but I'm here, Dean. I'll _always_ be here for you…"

His voice tailed off momentarily as the older man just… stared at him: the green tear-filled lagoons threatening to overflow once more. "Oh, Dean." And his own eyes were sympathetically prickling with moisture.

But then they were opening wide with surprise as his brother was suddenly on the move: stepping towards him as if compelled, with halting, almost lurching, strides… a couple of which took him right into Sam's personal space until Dean's forehead was resting right against the younger man's strong chest.

Sam could _feel_ the trembling through his brother's body.

All of his determination not to hustle the other man into something that might not be wanted simply went out of the window: the very next instant, Sam's long arms were tight around Dean and he was holding his brother to him as hard as he could.

It felt natural to the younger man to lower his head enough to rest his lips against the top of Dean's head even as he felt the smaller man's arms return the embrace just as tightly until they were standing clasped together so close as to be almost one body.

And Sam was talking continuously to his brother, enjoying the tickle of the other man's soft hair against his lips as he did and the fresh scent of recently-used shampoo in his nostrils: "I'm so sorry, Dean: I really am.

It's stupid: I always seem to deal with things by running away. Flagstaff; Stanford; Amy… I'm a coward, Dean. That's a coward thing to do…

Especially when I know about you and your abandonment issues…

That makes it a _shitty_ thing to do.

I should have thought: I shouldn't have just walked away from you. But I wasn't abandoning you, Dean: I just… needed some space. I should have thought about how it looked to you: I should have _thought_…

I won't ever walk away from you again. I promise. Though you had better understand that that means I'm probably just going to be punching you in the future because you're _bound_ to be winding me up again very _soon!_"

The snort of amusement that Dean couldn't hold in was music to Sam's ears. He buried his lips even deeper into the short tufts of hair until he could gently kiss the flesh of the man's scalp beneath: "Hey!" he whispered. "I never realised before how short you are compared to me. Does this mean that I get to call you 'little brother' from now on?"

"Bitch." The word was a mumble against his chest but clear enough.

This time it was Sam who snorted with amusement. "Jerk." he automatically responded… then he hesitated. "I love you, big brother. I always have done: I always will. Never think that I don't."

He felt rather than saw the slight nod beneath his chin and into his chest. "Love you too," came the mumble. "Far too much."

Sam's grin spread so wide that his dimples almost sunk through his cheek: had Dean actually just said that? The younger Winchester could hardly believe it... but… his brother had actually just _said_ that. It was his turn for a tear or two… of joy… to trickle down his cheek…

"Come on," He finally recovered himself and sniffed back any more drips of moisture from escaping: "Let's get you back to the motel."

This time the nod was more obvious, and then Dean was releasing his hold and straightening up to step away. Sam immediately missed the warm solidness of his brother's body pressed against his own but reluctantly let him retreat a couple of paces. Then he was sighing again as he saw the other man's face.

Dean's complexion was so pale that it was almost white: his eyes were red-rimmed which was only serving to emphasise the green irises to almost unnatural vividness, and his cheeks were still stained with the moist tracks of tears.

But still he was easily the most beautiful thing that Sam had ever seen.

"What'cha staring at?"

The younger man ignored the embarrassed grumble even as he took the step forward… one of his effortlessly covering the span of Dean's two… and gently caught his brother's face in between his hands so as to tenderly wipe away the smeared traces with his long thumbs.

Dean's breath caught… and he looked up. Directly up into Sam's eyes: meeting them without a blink or any hesitation. "Sammy…?"

But it wasn't a question: it was a suggestion; an invitation; a… barely breathed request.

One that the younger man was extremely happy to oblige.

When their lips met, it was soft and loving: as innocently perfect as their very first kiss should have been, had life only been a lot more benevolent to both of them…

Sam never wanted to leave the moment… and when he opened his eyes again, he could see the same serenity now in his brother as he was aware of in himself… "_That_ will _forever_ be my 'number one in Heaven' moment…"

… and Dean shyly smiled back up at him.

"Come on. Let's get back." Sam forced himself to pull away… he was determined to let whatever this was, or might or might _not_ be, go at _Dean's_ pace and Dean's pace only… and held out his hand: his dimples returning in full force when his brother simply took it without a single complaint and followed him back down the alley… although it didn't come as a surprise to the younger man when, the moment they reached the end of it, their mutual union was suddenly dropped like a red hot brick!

"Chick-flick moment over?" But he said it with a smile.

Dean grunted. But then his lips also lifted in response.

It was in a much more companionable silence that they returned to the Impala compared to the one that they had left it, even though Dean kept on surreptitiously rubbing at his face trying to erase all trace of his tears.

Although Sam couldn't help but be anxious as they approached the car: Dean would be expecting to leave… he would be _demanding_ to leave… but the younger man really wanted to see this through. He knew that he and his brother were coming at this from completely different points of view… and their respective upbringings were everything to do with that, now that Sam knew what the other man had been and that their… his… father had been lying to him his whole life…

… but this really mattered to him. He _got_ why Dean didn't want to be there… but _he_ would sit in that car outside that house all _night_ if he had to…

This was just that _important_.

"Well?" Bobby called: "You two idgits sorted it out?"

He was standing by the front of the car, one arm casually holding a squealing Bobby-John who was sitting on the hood and playing with his favourite Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys that Dean had found for him.

(Although Dean was relieved to note that the old man had removed the toddler's shoes so that their heels didn't get drummed against his precious Baby's paintwork and found a blanket for him to sit on so the plastic toys didn't get bashed against it for the same reason.)

"How the hell… how is _this_ being inconspicuous?"

"Two grown-ass men storming out of a car in the middle of the street ain't attention-worthy enough?" Bobby countered. "Besides, it was getting stuffy in there and we were getting hungry, weren't we, sproglet?"

"Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad." The child agreed and held out his arms, toys and all, to Dean. "Dad dad dad!"

"Heya, Munchkin." And he was picking the little boy up in his arms and resting him easily against one hip in an accustomed stance. "Let's go and find a diner, shall we? What?"

For he had seen the look that the other two men had shared.

"You said we'd be getting going?" He was already getting angry again at his brother: Sam had told him they were going to leave… he had just _told_ him that! They were going to finally give this rubbish up.

Far better that way, in Dean's opinion.

"I know I did…" the younger man was hesitant. "But…" "Look, boy," Bobby spoke at the same time, "we get that you're… uncomfortable with this… but it's something we _agreed_."

"_You_ agreed!"

"_We_ agreed, ya stubborn _idgit! _Now, we're staying here! All of us! And we're seeing this through! No more argument.

And _another_ thing!" Bobby was determined to change the subject before Dean recovered enough to dissent again: this was _far_ too important for the boy to go and mess it up. "_He's_ calling you _dad!_ Haven't you noticed? He _worships_ ya! What'cha going to do when that bast… the Alpha… comes to take him back this time? It'll break that little boy's _heart, _Dean!

_And_ yours!"

It worked. Dean paused for a minute, licked his lips nervously but then spoke in a worryingly calm tone. "And _yours_, Bobby. But I'm not sure about yours…?"

He was eyeing Sam as he said that, but the younger man has no hesitation at all as he answered: "Bobby-John's already family, Dean. _You_ know that. No matter what I may think of his parentage, I love him… and you… with all my heart. I can't bear the thought of him going back either…

Or what you're going to do without him if he does…"

Dean silently stared at his brother for a long time. Sam felt himself grow quite nervous under the scrutiny: he was fidgeting. He _knew_ he was fidgeting. This was ridiculous: he was a grown man _and_ a Hunter, for fuck's sake.

But to his shame he felt almost like when he was twelve and trying to sneak out the full bottle that his older brother had somehow (illegally) secured for their dad's consumption to try and impress his new classmates…

Dean had known what he had done: Sam had always been _sure_ of that. But he had never said: he had just stood in that shitty little motel room and gazed at his little brother as if reading every single thought in his head… and then just nodded and let him go without a single word…

Sam had never thought to wonder before what price Dean had _actually_ paid for that bottle of alcohol going missing…

… and he so well remembered his resentment at his new 'friends', who had made sure that all the whisky had been drunk before telling him he was fucking white-trailer-trash and why didn't he go back where he fucking well came from…

Sam _knew_ where he came from. But all he had ever wanted to do all his life was simply fit in with normal people… feel like he actually _belonged_ somewhere…

The younger Winchester came out of his impromptu reverie with a start to suddenly meet his older brother's eyes straight on. For he suddenly _knew_ where he belonged.

He belonged _here_.

He belonged with Dean, where _ever_ the other man was.

He belonged with _Dean_. Whether just as a brother or a lover, it didn't matter…

And if the little boy was staying… which he was, because it would just break Dean's heart if he didn't, and he had had his heart broken far too much already in his life, so Bobby-John was _definitely_ staying… then, if Sam had to settle for just being an uncle or even perhaps… be able to become a second dad to the child… then _that_ didn't matter.

Just as long as he was with Dean.

Because being with _him_ was the only place that Sam had _ever_ fitted. Why the hell had it taken him so long to realise that?

But Dean was still staring at him.

Although eventually he was satisfied with whatever he was looking for in his younger brother's face… and looked down at the little boy, who was happily bashing at the Space Ranger with the other action figure, in his arms. 'That's my boy,' Dean smirked to himself. 'Cowboys _rule!_'

Aloud though, he said: "The Alpha told me last time that B-J was pining for me: he wouldn't do anything he was told; he wouldn't even shift into another shape which is apparently unheard of for a young shapeshifter because _not_ being able to control it is as difficult as controlling it and often they wake up looking completely different, and he was really miserable and despondent all the time. The Alpha's asked…" here, Dean took a deep breath before continuing… "if I would consider keeping Bobby-John permanently, even despite what he is…

I told him I'd think about it."

There was a long pause. The other two men held their breaths expectantly…

"I've thought about it."

"_And?"_ It was no use: Bobby couldn't contain himself. "What've you decided then, ya _moron?_ And you'd better have chosen _right_, otherwise I'll be changing your mind _for_ ya…!"

"I'm keeping him." The words were so spoken so quietly that they were nearly missed… but they were spoken all the same… "I don't know much about being a dad, but as long as I do everything that John Winchester _didn't_, perhaps I'll stand a chance of getting _some_ of it right…"

"You'll be amazing!" Sam interjected excitedly. "You've been more of a dad to me than… well, _dad_ was! And _I_ turned out alright!"

Then he was flushing with shame as Dean couldn't help but mutter: "Yeah… look how _that_ turned out. You can't ever wait to get away from me…"

"Not this time." Sam hastened to reassure him. "And _never_ again."

"So when ya going to tell him?" Bobby didn't care about that: his attention was all on the little boy…and his smile was the widest that either of the Winchester brothers had ever seen... "You can live with me: you'd _better_ be living with me! Come here, you!"

And he was clapping his hands and holding them out for Bobby-John… and Buzz Lightyear was being discarded without a second thought and hurtled to the ground as the toddler squealed with excitement and all but lunged for them, causing Dean to curse beneath his breath as he nearly dropped his brand new charge.

But the old man was already grabbing for the child and bouncing him up and down in his arms. "Come here to Grandpa! We'll go home via a Walmart: they've a swing set on offer! Your dad can help me clear some of those old wrecks out of the way and we'll create a safe enclosed little garden especially for you! And we'll clean the house up: make it suitable. And he's gonna quit Hunting: he's gotta be there to watch you grow up.

Yes, you are!" As Dean startled with surprise and looked as if he was ready to argue. "Ain't no question of that! John dragged you all around the damn country using you as these… _deals…"_ Bobby couldn't hide his tremendous disgust at both of the man and the way he had used his own son as a living commodity "… destroying your childhood in the process just for his own thirst for revenge, which he died before he ever got! Ain't no way _you're_ doing that. Yes, we'll help the other Hunters get these Leviathan freaks: I ain't forgotten how important that is, of _course_ I ain't. But you need to concentrate on living your own life with _your_ son now…"

The older Winchester stood and stared at him. The younger one reached out to touch his arm… and Dean turned and blinked as if a little dazed at Bobby's decree… but then his tongue poked out to lick his lips as per his lifelong habit and he was nodding. "It's okay if we stay with you then, Bobby? I didn't want to intrude…" He broke off suddenly: "Did you just call yourself '_Grandpa_'?"

"Yup! Got a problem with that… _daddy?_" And Bobby was grinning all over his face!

His excitement was infectious: both the brothers chuckled at him despite themselves… and B-J squealed and joined in, giggling and clapping his little hands, one still full of a somewhat floppy Woody toy, haphazardly together until they were all laughing helplessly just from the joy of being able to.

Dean finally recovered himself, and with a genuine look of love at the little boy, moved to take him from the old man ready to return him to his child seat in the rear of the Impala. "Okay! Let's go and find sommat to eat!"

That wiped the smiles immediately of the faces of the other two men. Bobby hastily stepped with the child out of range from Dean's out-stretched arms, trying to think of a way to stall the damn stupid nincompoop and make him see this thing through.

Sam sighed, and with a glance across at his uncle, did the only thing that he _could_ do. "Dean…? It's time to tell you the truth…"

Even as his brother bristled at the words, they were interrupted by the sound of a fast-approaching vehicle down the quiet street. A little modern car… a fiat panda or something similar… was being driven quickly down the road towards them.

Sam expected a snarky comment from his brother about the bright yellow, definitely not 'classic' monstrosity, but instead Dean remained silent: rage rolling off him in almost visible waves – what had the younger man meant? What the hell had Sammy done _now?_

He was only waiting for the banana-mobile, as he had instantly named it in his head, to pass and for any onlookers to get out of the way before he beat his little brother into a pulp. But even as the small car passed the Impala, the two occupants inside were looking over the roof of it to where the Winchester family were standing on the sidewalk…

… and then the fiat was screeching to a halt in the middle of the road, and the two occupants… a woman and a man… were jumping out of it and racing around the black Impala with cries of mixed tears and joy… "Dee! Oh God, it's really you! _Dee!_"

"What the…?" Dean began, but they were both on him: throwing their arms around his neck and clinging on for all they were worth, tears already steaming down both the strangers' cheeks. Then he was almost stumbling over his words in disbelief: "Dev…? _Devon?_ And Billy… can it really be… _Billy?! _I… "

Dean couldn't say any more: he couldn't believe… this had to be a dream, didn't it? Just a impossible, unattainable but very much wanted dream… He glanced over at his brother… because he just needed to see his brother and prove to himself that something, _anything_, was real: even the Fairy Realm had seemed more plausible than this…

… but there was Sam. Standing watching him with tears also streaming down his cheeks again and a wide, wide smile on his face…

Dean stared at him… his mouth now working noiselessly…. "How?" was all he eventually managed to croak.

If possible, the dimples went even deeper. "It took a few calls to the hospital to be finally able to talk to Maggie… erm… your sister… but once I _had_…"

"That's how you got the address." The older man was working it out, trying desperately to hold onto something that he could understand at present… something _tangible_. "All that horse-shit you gave me about hacking into the system and going through the records one by one was just _that_…"

"The hardest bit was trying to convince them not to fly immediately out to _us_." Sam told him. "Not with everything that's... been going on." Dean understood the underlying implication in the hesitant words immediately: no, he definitely would _not_ have wanted these people put in any danger… not because of _him_.

"But I knew how anxious you were about coming here to try and meet them: I didn't want them to be on vacation or something stupid so I called Maggie again to be sure… Her shift today wasn't supposed to finish until 3pm, but I could hear how determined she was that she'd get out early… "

"I called Billy as soon as I got off the phone to your brother!" The woman cut in eagerly. "I would have called in sick if we only had enough nurses not to abandon… But we got here as soon as we could…

I was so terrified that you wouldn't wait…

Dee…

Oh God, we've missed you so much…"

And she was dissolving into tears and hugging her big brother tightly again.

As Sam stood and watched them momentarily, he could see the family resemblance. The woman Maggie… or Dev, as Dean had called her… was smaller both in height and stature than her twin but she had the same beautiful green eyes as his brother. Her face was a slightly different shape though: it was longer, with a far more pointed chin, and her lips were narrower.

Billy, on the other hand, was almost identical in facial features to his older brother… but he stood a good eight inches shorter in height… Maggie was taller than him and she was wearing flat heels... and was probably more than that in a wider girth! The chubbiness of his cheeks completely detracted from what should have been the lush plumpness of his lips, although his eyes, like his sister's, shone with the happiness of being loved, wanted and safe throughout their lives.

Sam couldn't help but reflect that his Dean definitely was the most stunning of the three siblings... and he was going to do everything it took, no matter what, to get his big brother's eyes to smile like that.

"Wow, you certainly got the looks of the family!" He obviously wasn't the only one noticing. "I think we better keep our Jenny away from you when she gets here!"

"J…Jenny?" Dean was overwhelmed. Sam could _see_ he was overwhelmed.

He was stepping forward before he had thought, extricating his brother from the triple embrace that was making Dean so uncomfortable and pulling him away enough that there was much-appreciated space between them all until Sam was standing just to the rear of the older man with his hands resting lightly on each of the other's shoulders to try and give a grounding touch and help keep him calm…

Two pairs of happily shining green irises turned to stare at him in slight confusion, then the professionalism of the nurse and the paramedic was suddenly coming through, and they were looking at their long love brother with slightly less opaque eyes and taking in his obvious discomfort and general anguish.

Immediately their demeanours were changing slightly. "You didn't know that we'd definitely be here? This was just taking the _chance_? And we… _we've_ talked of nothing else of this moment for _years_, let alone when your brother finally called us… it must be a lot to take in…

Oh my god, is that your son? Oh Dee, he looks just like you! Your brother didn't _say_. Oh, _hello_ sweetie!" And Maggie… Devon… was advancing on Bobby, cooing at the child in his arms.

B-J looked at her with wide, _wide_ green eyes and immediately twisted towards where Dean stood: "Dad dad dad!"

"Oh, he knows his father! I can't wait for Deena to say her first word… and you must be Mr Winchester…"

"I sure as hell ain't _him!_" The old man didn't mean to sound so gruff. "I'm Bobby Singer: I'd have been _proud_ to be Dean's daddy!"

The woman looked taken aback, but quickly recovered, turning towards where the Winchesters were standing: "And you must be Sam. I'm sorry: we were so excited we didn't introduce ourselves… But this of course, Dee, is your brother…"

"_No!_"

Even Sam was shocked by the forceful emphasis on the word. His heart sunk: had he really upset Dean so much because of Amy? Was he no longer wanted now his big brother had found his real siblings?

But then he was registering how tense Dean's shoulders had become beneath his hands… in fact, how tightly strung his whole _body_ seemed to be…

He almost missed the older man's next words.

"We were brought up as brothers, yes. But Sam's more to me than that. _Much_ more. We're partners in _everything_. I need you to understand that."

And then _Sam_ was suddenly understanding.

He had thought that Dean was… simply _anxious_ about meeting his real siblings: that was why he had been so stubborn about looking for them and had done everything he could not to have been there that day…

… including, Sam realised, waiting to give him that file about Amy that very morning, _knowing_ that it would cause a fight between them…

… the fucking devious bastard…

… but that didn't matter now, because Sam could feel how Dean was physically shaking under his fingers: he was trembling with nerves… terrified of the probable rejection that was about to happen…

_That_ was why Dean had so desperately not wanted to come. Not because he was worried… and he _was_… he was really, _really_ worried that his siblings wouldn't accept him for what he had been forced to do throughout his life… but also because he was scared shitless that he wouldn't be accepted for what he _was_…

Not for the first time in Sam's life, he found himself cursing John Winchester. _This_ time for repeatedly raping his oldest son while all the while telling him that love for another man was something disgusting… abhorrent… to be ashamed of…

And here was his brave, _brave_ brother: the very first time to Sam's knowledge that Dean was actually _outing_ himself, he was doing so to his real family… and at the same time, physically bracing himself for the pain of being rejected yet again in his life.

Sam's heart swelled with love and pride: no matter what happened now, Dean was going to know that _he_ was there.

It took only a slight step forward for the younger man to be fully flush with his brother's body: his chest pressed supportively against the other's back, one long arm sliding fully over Dean's shoulder to instead catch him across his chest while Sam's other arm moved to slide protectively around his waist, both upper limbs tightened in support… and there they stood. Together.

But the anticipated negative reaction never came. Instead Maggie… or Devon… or whatever the hell her name was… and Billy, simply smiled and nodded… and accepted. "He looks a lovely man. And he'd better be looking after _you_, Dee!"

Dean's body physically sagged in relief against Sam. The younger man's arms tightened even more in support as what that moment had actually _meant_ to his brother became even clearer. Instinctively he leant forward slightly and kissed the other man's cheek: "I love you," he whispered.

Then he couldn't help but smirk as Dean's face flushed scarlet right to the very tips of his ears. But he didn't pull away from Sam's arms.

The younger man couldn't help but ask one of the probably near to a million questions that he had though… "Why are you calling him 'Dee'? His name's Dean."

Maggie Lincoln smiled up at him: "My brother's name is _Dehan_. It means 'good'. _My_ name was Devon, meaning 'defender'. The bit… woman who gave birth to us and then _sold_ us, had very strange taste. She'd obviously lost it by the time she had Billy… meaning 'pain in the ass'!"

"Hey!" The shorter, much stockier version of Dean pretended to be mockingly insulted. But then he was hugging Dean again with genuine emotion, gathering Sam into the embrace as well without hesitation. "We've missed you so much, big brother: we've looked for you everywhere!"

Sam felt his heart stutter at the words… 'Big brother'. This was Dean's real little brother! So… what was _he _now? Could he still call himself that?

But Dean's thoughts were elsewhere… "Dehan… I'd forgotten… I can remember dad… John Winchester… asking me if I was okay with being called 'Dean'… _mom_ actually chose it… in the car… she was sat _with_ me in the back of the car… and it was so close to _my_ name that… it seemed as if it was meant to be… that I was always meant to be Dean Winchester somehow…"

He came out of the slight daze he had gone into and became aware that he was definitely the centre of everybody else's attention, causing him to freshen up his blush: "Sorry."

"Don't be." Billy assured him. "We've all got so much to catch up on. Mom… sorry, _our_ mom, who bought us… well, her and dad: Sarah and James Lincoln… they were good to us, Dee. And to our older sister Jenny: she came from the slave auctions as well. But mom… she always said that her greatest regret was that they couldn't afford to buy you as well.

She and dad would have loved to have been able to keep us all together."

"I'd have just brought the danger to your door." Dean spoke without thinking: his thoughts still in long-forgotten memories. He didn't notice the sudden pause from everyone else, or the look between his siblings.

Sam and Bobby noticed.

"Dee? Sorry… do you prefer Dean?" Maggie began slowly. "Look, I…" She hesitated again. "Look, I just want to say this. I think we _need_ to.

I'd never really thought about… it had never occurred to me… I guess Billy and I have just been so _lucky._

What I'm trying to say is… it wasn't until I was doing my nurse training, and we were being taught signs to watch out for… Of abuse, I mean…

And then suddenly I had this flashback of… _you_. When you used to come back from your afternoons out with Mr Johnson and you'd always look like you'd been crying but would never say anything, and I suddenly remembered one of the men smiling at me strangely one day and Nate… why do I remember his name? But I _do_… telling him not to dare try anything because the boss would fire him like a shot or _worse_ if he did because of _you_, and I realised… I realised what you had _done!_

Even back then… oh god, you were so young, Dee…

But, even _then_, you'd _done_ it.

For_ us, _I mean.

God knows _what _you've done to protect us…

What I'm trying to say is…"

"What she's trying to say," Billy suddenly interrupted. "What she's _trying_ to say is that we've been looking for you our whole lives, and we don't care if you've had to… or _anything_ that you've done to survive: we've got a big-brother-shaped hole in our lives that needs _filling_, Dee…. Dean."

"So the past is past." Maggie took it up. "_Period_. If you're worried about anything from it, then we don't _care_. And if you never want to tell us anything, then that's okay as well. Because all that matters to us is having you back in our lives _now_."

"We would buy you presents every year, Christmas and birthday, _praying_ that one day you'd be with us to open them. We've spent so long missing you, and… to me, I've never felt _complete_. Not without _you_ there." Maggie nodded frantically in agreement with her younger brother's statement. "And now you _are_ here… I just can't believe it: it's like a dream… and I can't wait for you and _this_ young man" as he indicated the increasingly wriggly Bobby-John in the old man's arms, "to finally meet _my_ girls!"

"You've got kids, Billy?" Dean couldn't believe it: of all the things that had seemed so incredible that day, somehow his baby brother having children of his own seemed the most amazing!

"I got the twins gene!" Billy grinned proudly back at him. "Faith and Hope. And yeah, it's a little corny but they were named with finding you in mind, Dee."

"As was _my_ baby, Deena: she's seven months old." Maggie's voice gave away how proud a mother she was. "My partner George is picking her up for me: he'll be here soon. As will Billy's wife with the girls. And mom and Jenny are both coming over as well: they're desperate to meet you. Unfortunately dad passed away from a stroke a few years ago, but finding you was _his_ dream as well: we've _all _been looking…

But if it's too much… then that's okay, Dee. We'll send them all away again.

Just don't think that _you're_ going anywhere though, because you're stuck with us now!"

All Dean could do was stare at them both: his eyes and mouth _wide_ open. It was Bobby who finally took pity first.

"Look. I'm getting as hungry as B-J is. Not to mention the munchkin's getting really _heavy! _I brought some food for us all to snack on in the Impala: Sam and I didn't know how long you'd be… _nor_ how long we'd manage to keep Dean waiting at _all_…"

Maggie was quick on the uptake. "What am I thinking? I'm being so _rude! _Come inside, all of you: I'll fix lunch, I…

Oh God, I better move my Baby: I just left her in the middle of the road!" And with that, she was running to the little yellow fiat and jumping into the driver's seat. "Thank goodness this is a quiet street! Billy, take them all inside while I move her, will you?"

"Okay. Dee… Dean? Why don't you and Sam just take a moment out here while we start some food? Come on in when you're ready."

If the younger Winchester didn't like his brother's _real_ little brother before, then he did now: his heart warmed to Billy's innate comprehension and compassion. "Okay, thanks," he smiled. "You okay taking B-J on in, Bobby? We'll bring our food and all his paraphanalia…"

He held Dean tightly as the others moved away from them, crossing the street while taking care to avoid the little car as Maggie finally drove it up onto her driveway.

They all resolutely kept their eyes averted from where the two brothers were still standing. Sam was far too aware of how hard the older man's heart was beating: he could feel it easily pounding against his own chest… and he _worried_ about Dean's heart. He had never fully believed that it had been completely healed all those years ago…

"Hey," he leant forward slightly and whispered in the other man's ear. "You okay?"

The only response was a slight shrug against him, followed a few moments later by a "Yeah… I guess…

At least they didn't tell me to go to hell…"

Sam couldn't help but put his lips to his brother's cheek again. "They never would. You can _see_ how much they've missed you as well…"

"They should." He nearly missed the older man's words: they were uttered so quietly as to be barely more than breathed: "Why decent people like that would want something like _me_ in their lives, I _don't_ know…."

The younger man sighed and held Dean impossibly even tighter. "If it takes me the rest of my life, I will convince you not only of how wonderful you are, but also of how much you are _loved_. Especially by me!"

The response was a disbelieving snort, followed by a deep heartfelt sigh. "We better go and get it over with..."

"Or… we can just stay out here a moment." Sam suggested. "This isn't an order that you have to follow or a duty given to you by dad: this is your _real_ sister and brother. You've _found_ them, and they love you. I can't imagine what thoughts or memories are going through your head right now and I probably never will, but just… take a minute and calm down… Do you want to sit in the Impala?"

"Nah, I'm good." And he was. He felt safe in his younger brother's arms, surrounded by the warmth from Sam's chest pressed up against his back. He would have been quite happy to be able to stay there for the rest of his life and not have to deal with Leviathans or new found family who were bound at some stage no matter what they said to want answers…

If Dean were honest with himself, he was probably more concerned about the latter…

No, just at that moment, Dean wanted the world to stop and leave him exactly where he was.

A movement somewhere off to their left caught his eye and he turned his head in that direction. Sam followed the motion and saw a thin, grey-muzzled, and probably mange-ridden dog skulking out from the bushes in front of one of the other houses. The younger man's heart ached at the sight: he _hated _to see abandoned and badly treated animals. He just wished he could something to help them all…

With a barely repressed sigh, he turned away from the poor animal, not being able to bear looking at it anymore.

But Dean kept staring at it: his face now back to his usual stoic mask of casual indifference. Sam nudged him in an attempt to regain his older brother's attention: "Hey. I've been thinking…

And I think, that after being such a dick to you because of Amy, I deserve to be 'punished'." He deliberately let his voice drop an octave and tried to make it sound as husky as possible. "What would you say to asking Bobby to look after B-J for a night, and you can punish me for being so bad, and… I'd let you do anything you want…

_Anything._"

For a long moment, the younger Winchester thought that his words were being deliberately ignored…

Dean had watched the dog as it limped out of the shadows and he _knew_. He didn't know _how_ he knew, but he _did_.

Same way he had known when that tall, blonde, Scandinavian-looking man had approached him in that bar and offered to buy him a drink as if nothing had ever happened…

Same way he knew _every_ time the Alpha was around. A raggedy-feathered crow; a stranger across the diner; a motel cat purring around his feet and making him sneeze: it was almost like a prickling at the nape of his neck… a spidey-sense, his imagination had obligingly decided… but he _knew_…

"Outside!" he had snarled at the blonde man, and the other had looked surprised and… eager… expectant…

The smile had quickly been wiped off his face at Dean's first punch to that smug, _smug_ face. But with the next punch, _and_ the next, he had told the Alpha Shapeshifter just what he thought about being tricked like that… about the bastard taking his brother's shape and… doing _that_… and that he had better never even _think_ about fucking touching Dean again in any fucking form unless he wanted his existence to fucking finally come to an end because Dean Winchester fucking _would_ end him: that was a fucking _promise_…

The Alpha had had the nerve to knock on the door of their motel room the next day: Dean was lying low in case the police were still looking to interview him despite the 'victim' of the vicious beating mysteriously disappearing right after a desperate Sam had dragged him away from the scene…

He hadn't seemed to have a mark _on_ him to the human's disgust. But he _had_ apologised profusely to Dean and sworn that he would _never_ try to deceive him like that again, and talked about Bobby-John and how much he seemed to miss Dean, and about the crash that had killed the prince…

And, no matter what, Dean would _always_ be grateful to him for freeing him from the hell of slavery…

He knew Sam didn't understand: he knew that his brother was desperate to kill the Alpha for what he had done and _would_, given half a chance…

But Dean owed him. He had never felt such betrayal since Castiel… but he _owed_ the Alpha.

And, even without Bobby-John to provide a common ground between them… Dean had grown to like the Alpha Shapeshifter. He had even begun to consider him to be a friend… before the other being had done what he had done…

As he now considered Gastrian as a friend: the Sith having taken to dropping in to check up on Dean as if he was an old acquaintance and always with an invitation from the King to join them permanently at the palace. The human had become as accustomed to hearing the soft hum of the twofold wings at any time as he had done the flapping of feathered ones…

And Dean had never been so tempted to go as when Sam had walked away from him yet again… after what had happened at the AE headquarters, he had seriously wondered why he bothered to stay in a world that seemed to just _hate_ him so much…

It had only been a fortuitous call from the Alpha Shapeshifter asking him to look after Bobby-John… and the following wonderful week spent in company with the innocent child that had kept him in this dimension…

And it had been the parting from the little boy that had made him realise just how much he was starting to love him…

Nearly as much as he loved Sammy.

Speaking of Sam… _what_ was that his brother had just said?

"_Anything?_"

"Yes," Sam smirked, certain now of his brother's full attention. He still had his arms full of the older man and used them to turn Dean round enough to be able to get to those incredible lips. Even as he was closing the distance between them and his own mouth, he was continuing: "_Anything_. But I must admit: I'm expecting to rather enjoy the punishment that you're going to give me… and feel the effects of it for at least a week every time I sit down…"

"Oh, you will," Dean's expression was smug. "I _promise_."

Their lips met and merged, combining a mixture of tenderness and lust that at any other time would have quickly escalated into full-blown passion. But it was a mutual decision to hurriedly end the kiss in case it managed to get anywhere near that stage… now really _wasn't_ the time.

Dean smiled up at the younger man. "We better go and get it over with." But this time the words were spoken in a much happier tone.

Sam nodded: "You want to leave then we leave: you want to stay then we stay. Your pace, Dean. In _everything_ from now on. And… I really am sorry."

"S'okay, Sammy."

The younger man quickly grabbed the bag that Bobby had packed out of the impala while Dean rescued the discarded Buzz Lightyear and put him away, and side by side they crossed the road to the house where Billy and B-J were waiting for them: the little boy and his toy up in the man's arms, having obviously quickly bonded with his new uncle.

"_Anything?_" Dean couldn't contain his flinch and a gasp at the diminutive but clearly audible shout directly into his right ear. "What does _that_ mean?"

Shit, how long had Tiny been there?

"Sorry, a bug startled me," he explained to his bemused brother… and felt the little elf chuckle mischievously against his lobe because he knew the human couldn't answer him.

Dean had been so relieved when the miniature man had turned up again in his life: he had felt so miserable at the thought that yet another being had been killed because of him… and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he had gotten something in both his eyes as soon as he had seen the smiling, eager little face.

Since then though, Tiny had been determined not to be separated from him ever again… and had proved to be a vexing literal shoulder-devil, holding tightly onto Dean's collar… or hair, as he had tugged on more than once to extremely painful effect on the man's part… and generally taking an unhealthy interest in everything happening in his human's world.

Dean was _definitely_ going to have to temporarily get rid of him somehow before he kept that particular promise to Sam.

As soon as the Winchesters reached the driveway, Billy was putting the child down on the path so he could run to greet Dean with an excited cry of "Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad!"

Both of his younger brothers grinned as Dean swung the toddler up into his arms: "C'mere you!"

"Do you reckon he'll be able to say 'Sam' soon?" Sammy asked. "_Sam_, say _Sam_."

Bobby-John laughed up at him. "T…T… T…Ty…." And he was reaching two chubby little arms up around his chosen new dad's neck, reaching for the little elf, who decided that being the next plaything for the Woody cowboy doll to battle probably wasn't going to end too well for him and hastily jumped down to lose himself in one of Dean's pockets. 'Serves you right,' the man thought smugly.

"So!" Billy greeted Sam with a grin. "Bobby tells me that you're four years younger than Dee. I'm only two… or something like that: we don't actually know, Maggie's records got all written over by somebody. But that definitely makes _you_ the baby of the family!"

The younger Winchester stared down at him wide-eyed, then at Dean who couldn't help but be amused at the look of indignation on Sam's face. "He's right, Sammy! He may not even come up to your shoulder, but you're gonna _always_ be my little brother!"

Sam sighed… but his righteous indignation was already evaporating at the sound of the older man's laughter. "I guess I can live with that," he allowed with a grin.

"Come on," Dean reached to put his arm up around Sam's shoulder, wiping back yet another tear that threatened to escape when the child in his arms decided he and Woody wanted to join in the mutual embrace. "Let's get inside and see if there's any pie."

"I think we've got some cake…" Billy led the way, smiling at his sister as Maggie and the old man came to greet them, mugs of steaming hot coffee already in hand.

Dean was genuinely horrified. "What, no _pie_…?"

The sound of Sam's and Bobby's laughter filled the air even as the front door closed…

Across the street, the mangy 'dog' returned to the shadowed space beside the house that he had emerged from and shifted to his more usual human-in-form shape.

Even as the Alpha Shapeshifter began to walk away, he was smiling: he had wanted to be there to witness when Dean finally got to meet his siblings. He just wished that he could _really_ have been a part of the proceedings, perhaps been introduced as a friend… or more… along with his son.

He hadn't _meant_ to give Dean any of his blood that night… no matter what the human thought, it had been completely an _accident_… but even that one or two drops had definitely had an effect.

In at least one way that the Alpha had expected

And in another way that he completely had _never_ thought of…

For just as the Alpha had always known instinctively where every single one of his family was… or had done before that bastard demon had killed them all… so the intuition had passed on with his blood…

And now Dean knew where _he_ was.

Every time.

No matter _what_ he was shaped as, Dean _knew_.

It had come as a real shock when the older Winchester had punched him: for one genuine moment, the Alpha had thought that Dean was really going to _kill_ him. Ironically it was only Sam pulling his brother away that had given the shapeshifter the chance to catch his breath and subtly adjust the position of his vital organs in that blonde Swedish perfect-Aryan body that he had hoped the man might appreciate spending a night with…

But at least Dean had calmed down enough by the next day to talk to. The Alpha had apologised honestly and sworn that he would never try and deceive him like that again… and then had managed to get the topic around to the prince and the cutting out of the slave chip, and that had been that.

Not that his _desire_ for Dean had gone… not at all. In fact it had grown stronger since that night: the Alpha desperately wanted that again… and again… and again.

Not to mention that he was growing to _love_ the human. Dean so obviously cared for Bobby-John, and the child absolutely _adored_ him in return. He wasn't interested in being with the Alpha at _all_. Getting him to behave or even eat had become a never-ending battle, and he absolutely _refused_ to try and shift into other shapes during the day: his little plump lips turning down with such determination… and a promise of such a pout to come.

Even if he had accidently shifted during the night, B-J would instantly change back to the green-eyed appearance he had consciously chosen upon awakening. The Alpha _knew_: he had stood with amusement more than once in the dark and watched it happen.

It seemed logical to the Alpha that he should eventually have asked Dean if he would permanently look after the child and bring B-J up at his own. He did love his son… very much… but if the child wasn't happy with him at _this_ young age then he wanted to do what was best for him. It would only be a matter of creating false paperwork to show proof of paternity and the Shapeshifter could _easily_ walk into any Government building to get that.

It was how he had got most of the information on Amy Pond after all.

Not to mention that Dean having his child would give a permanent link between them. And definitely a reason to watch over him: those damned Leviathans weren't coming anywhere near either of _his_ boys! He had already taken care of a couple of the bastard things that had got too close to make sure…

And on the days when he wasn't able to be there, the _Sith_ now seemed to be taking a major interest in Dean. The Alpha had seen more of the beings in this dimension since the burning down of the AE headquarters than he had in probably all of his incredibly long existence… and he knew that _they_ would take issue with anything trying to hurt his human.

_And _he knew that their King was eager that Dean crossed through into that world again…

Which actually would suit the Alpha very _much_: Dean would be fully protected there and away from all the dangers of _this_ world. In fact, he had already taken steps to ensure that he and Bobby-John would be welcome in that realm as well… the child having been accepted as being his 'first-born' in lieu of all his numerous previous children having been slaughtered by that bastard black-suited demon… and the magic that flowed through that dimension like oxygen did in this one would ensure that his would-be new family would all live a very, _very_ long time. Maybe even for eternity… just like him…

Although… even if Dean didn't return to that dimension? The Alpha had noticed… although he didn't think the human had realised yet… that the terrible scar that that stupid idiot Crowley had left on his arm was already healing abnormally quickly: a couple of years at most and it would be completely gone. Just that couple of drops of his blood…

He couldn't help but wonder what a couple more could do…

But not on Dean. Not on _his_ human, and definitely not without his permission: the Alpha had learnt that much! But there was a definite possibility that the man would now live a long time naturally anyway…

Probably far longer than his brother…

So, he would _let_ Dean have his happiness now with Sam. As long as the younger man still wanted him, that is, and didn't just walk away again…

And if Sam _didn't_, then everything was in place to follow Dean where-ever his human decided to go. But for the time-being, he and the Sith would keep joint watch over their mutual responsibility.

At least that moron Crowley was being useful at the minute, as he was making plans to deal with the Leviathans once and for all. Once that threat had been taken care of, then the Alpha would breathe a lot easier.

Of course, as soon as the demon _had_ dealt with those monsters that he had so foolishly helped to bring to this world, then the Alpha would be paying him a visit concerning the previous events of his 'execution'. _Wasn't _the King of Hell going to be surprised to see him alive and well?

The Alpha was so looking forward to it.

He was looking forward to _everything_.


End file.
